


Love Reveals

by juliesprinkle



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-03-24 11:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13810401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliesprinkle/pseuds/juliesprinkle
Summary: When Ladybug thinks she saves Adrien Agreste from suicide (he was only going to jump out the window and turn into Cat Noir), romance blossoms!  Warning: kissing ahead!





	1. Chapter 1

Love Reveals

     Ladybug extended her arms, pushing her body to its limit as she flew through the streets of Paris. The flickering lights of streetside cafes, still crowded despite the late hour, flashed below her as Ladybug swung at breakneck speeds above them Periodically she would launch herself onto a rooftop, and then dash, leap, and tumble along the rooflines, cartwheeling over low walls and sliding down metal roofs to leap dangerously wide expanses between buildings. She kept up her breakneck pace until the Parc Georges Brassens, where she swung down to the darkened grasses and leaned against a solid oak tree, catching her breath.

  
     The day’s memories still sat sourly in her stomach. Breathing heavily, Ladybug reached down for a stone she saw at her feet and grabbed it, then threw it as hard as she could into the darkness. She heard it crack solidly against a tree, and out of pessimistic anxiety, Ladybug quickly crouched down, figuring that with her utter lack of grace, the stone would probably ricochet back to beam her in the head. Her negative thoughts forced a choked sob that caught in her throat. She covered her eyes with one hand, and with the other pushed herself back to sit against the oak.

  
     Now that she had stopped racing, her memories of the day caught up to her.

  
     “What a klutz,” Chloe’s nasty laugh echoed in her mind. “Why do you even come to school every day? Or is it to provide entertainment for the rest of us?” Chloe had laughed, followed by her sycophant Sabrina, making sure to attract as much attention to Marinette as possible before parading off.

  
     So many hours later, and still Ladybug ground her teeth in anger and frustration. She still would lay down her life that she had not just tripped, but tripped over Chloe’s outstretched foot. Chloe had seen her staring at, gazing at, drooling over Adrien as he walked ahead of her down the hall, Ladybug just knew it. And it made nothing better when, after Chloe had done her job and brought the least complimentary attention she could to Marinette, Adrien had then offered his hand to help her up.

  
     Stretched out the length of the hallway on her stomach, Marinette couldn’t even gracefully push his hand away. Every ounce of her pride felt like it had been demolished.  
Ladybug’s cheeks still burned with embarrassment thinking about it. Marinette had rolled into a sitting position, her back to Adrien, and muttered, “It’s okay,” or something equally ungracious. She hadn’t even thanked him when he handed her one of her dropped books, but instead had snatched it from his hand and then scurried away, head down, desperate to escape the few lingerers who were still laughing at her.

  
     “I _hate_ her!” Ladybug exclaimed into the silent trees around her. “I _hate_ her.”

  
     Thoughts of Chloe and Sabrina slowly faded, to be replaced by softer thoughts of Adrien. “Chloe would’ve done it anyway,” Ladybug muttered to herself, but certainly Chloe was more than happy to make Marinette into a fool in Adrien’s eyes. Every time Chloe managed to make Marinette look ridiculous in front of Adrien, Marinette knew that her chances of Adrien ever liking her diminished.

  
     Taking a running leap, Ladybug again sailed into the sky, swinging recklessly with her yoyo. She was so good now at careening through the streets with her yoyo, she did not even have to consciously think about it. The yoyo went where she wanted it to, and she knew exactly how much stress she could put on its magical string to catapult herself along. So instead, her mind was freed up to think about Adrien. At least she had watched him later refuse Chloe’s invitation to walk out of the school with her. Marinette could not see the look he must have given Chloe, but she certainly could see Chloe’s, and it wasn’t pretty. But, that was only _after_ Adrien had turned away.  
“Hah,” Ladybug thought, feeling completely uncharitable, “even if he never notices me, at least don’t let _Chloe_ get him!”

  
     With such thoughts as these, it did not surprise Ladybug to ultimately find herself on the large rooftops across from the Agreste Mansion. Ladybug had only done this a couple of times before - hide behind the corner of a neighboring rooftop and peek in at Adrien in his room. He never seemed to close his window shades, and his windows were so expansive, that Ladybug had a clear view of his room.

  
     She squatted down and rested on her heels, watching Adrien. From this distance, she couldn’t see him very well, but he was sitting with his back to her at his desk. Two recessed lights lit up the desk’s surface, but otherwise that wall of his bedroom was shadowed. Periodically, Adrien would lift his head and look like he was talking to somebody, but Ladybug could see no one else in the room. She sighed, because his beauty was so perfect. And he was nice. And he was kind. And he was smart. Ladybug laughed at herself, aware that she could take the next two hours to list all of Adrien’s attractions, and still not be finished.

  
     She sighed, wishing she had behaved differently that afternoon. She could have sat up, as she did, but then she could have turned and accepted Adrien’s hand. She could have said something witty and sophisticated, like, “That Chloe sure likes to draw attention to herself,” or, “I wish people would stop leaving their banana peels around, “ or even, to mimic Cat Noir, “I can’t believe I _fell_ for that foot trick again!” Ladybug sighed.

  
     Just then, Adrien’s head turned to the bedroom door, and he rose from his chair. It almost looked, from Ladybug's perspective, like he was fanning himself with his shirt. Then, Mr. Agreste’s personal secretary came in.

  
     Ladybug knew the woman was Nathalie, and she knew from bits of conversation between Nino and Adrien that Nathalie showed few emotions and even less kindness.  
However, something was happening now, because she could see Adrien tensing up. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders, and at one point said something to Nathalie. Then, pulling his hands back out from his pockets, Adrien held them out entreatingly. Nathalie said something more to Adrien, and Ladybug watched Nathalie stare briefly at Adrien, and Adrien stare at her, before Nathalie turned on one heel to march out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her.

  
     Ladybug watched, concerned, as Adrien just stood staring at the closed door. After a moment, he turned back to his desk, as if he were going to sit back down, but instead he grabbed a pen, spun around, and threw it forcefully across the room at his climbing wall.

  
     Adrien shoved his hands into his hair, as if he were holding his head. Ladybug stood up, sorry for him and sad, wondering what Nathalie might have said to make him behave like this. This was more emotion than Ladybug had ever seen Adrien display. Usually he was so reserved and even-keeled. Watching him, it made Ladybug wonder just how much went on behind Adrien’s pretty smiles.

  
     Suddenly Adrien turned and stalked to the wall of windows. Ladybug shrank back into the shadows of the building, not wanting Adrien to see her watching him. He threw open one of the windows, and smoothly jumped up onto its narrow frame. Ladybug’s heart leaped to her throat, and she let out a terrified screech as Adrien let go of the window frame and began to fall forward. “Noooo!!!” she screamed, as she threw herself across the distance.

                            *************

     Adrien was sitting at his desk diligently working through math problems and chatting half-heartedly with Plagg, when a knock sounded at his door. He jumped up, and holding out his white shirt said, “Quick Plagg!” Once he was certain Plagg was hidden, Adrien called, “Come in.”

  
     Nathalie entered. “Good evening, Adrien,” she said in her most neutral tone. Immediately Adrien knew that bad news was coming.

  
     “How can I help you, Nathalie?” Adrien asked.

  
     “Your father,” started Nathalie, and Adrien knew it was going to be bad. He shoved his hands into his pockets and fisted them, “has become aware that you do not come directly home from school on those days when you do not have fencing. He feels this is not acceptable.”

  
     “I’m not doing anything,” Adrien couldn’t help defend himself, even knowing it was useless. “I sit in the library and study, or sometimes I meet with my teachers.”

  
     Nathalie paused, raising one eyebrow, waiting for him to finish as if he were a truculent three year old. After a moment she continued as if Adrien had never spoken, “Therefore, from now on, except for those days when you have fencing, you will return home no later than 4:45.”

  
     “But Nathalie!” Adrien said, using his voice and his hands to plead with her, “That’s unfair! I hardly ever have an afternoon where I’m not either fencing or in Chinese class, or at a photoshoot! I can’t even study with some friends at the library? At school?!”

  
     “If you do not return by a quarter to five on those days, your father will no longer allow you to attend school. I am to ensure that you understand the consequences. Do you?” Nathalie stood like a lifeless marble statue.

  
     Grinding his teeth, Adrien finally replied bitterly, “Yeah, Nathalie, you can tell my ‘father’ -” he spit the word out, “that I understand.”

  
     With one final, unreadable look, Nathalie then turned and left. She shut the door carefully behind her.

  
     Adrien tried to tamp down the rage that was building in him. It was so _unfair_! It was like his father wanted to have nothing to do with him, yet wanted him to have nothing to do with anyone else.

  
     Breathing heavily, Adrien turned unconsciously back to his homework, but then lost the battle with his anger. It exploded inside of him, and grabbing his pencil from the desk, he whirled and threw it with all his might at the far wall. Still the bitterness surged through him. Adrien grabbed his head, feeling like he could hold the anger in, but it was no use. He stalked to the windows cutting him off from the outside world. Adrien threw open one, and leaped up to stand in the large frame. On nights like this, he would tempt fate by falling from his window and calling “Claws Out,” testing whether he could transform into his better side, his stronger, braver, freer side, before he hit the ground. Letting himself go, he was about to call, “Claws Out!” when he heard a shriek slice the inky night and a familiar voice cry, “No!”

  
     Adrien was falling, still without calling for Plagg, when he felt strong arms wrap firmly around him and a sharp tug as his inertia was broken and he was swung up and onto the mansion’s rooftop. Ladybug’s strong arms completely enclosed him, and he could feel her breathing heavily. Then her voice sounded, dismayed and full of fear, “Oh, no, Adrien, no no no!” Her arms wrapped him even more tightly, and like magic all of Adrien’s anger evaporated. He dropped his head onto Ladybug’s shoulder, and started to sob.

  
     The two stood, enclosed in Ladybug’s embrace, for almost five minutes. Slowly Adrien controlled his tears, horrified and embarrassed by his unexpected display. Ladybug’s arms around him never loosened. She was anchoring him to the rooftop, and her murmured words did more than anything to soothe him. “Oh, Adrien, it’s okay. It’s okay… I’m here, we’re all here… We all love you, Adrien, you’re not alone…”

  
     Ladybug said whatever she could think of to try to calm Adrien, to try to show him how valuable he was. She didn’t know what to say, and was scared that she might be saying the wrong thing, but she held firmly to the fact that Adrien seemed to be calming down.

  
     Adrien’s tears dwindled, and his breathing evened out. As soon as he stiffened his body, and pulled infinitesimally back, Ladybug gently let him go. Adrien turned his back to her, wiping away the last of his tears, hiding his face from her. He had never let another person see him cry like this, not even after his mom had gone. The awkwardness and embarrassment ran through his whole body, making words difficult.

  
     “Adrien, you’re not alone,” Ladybug said to his back.

  
     “I wasn’t going to -” Adrien stopped. Unless he wanted to disclose to Ladybug who he really was, there was nothing further he could say. But now, on top of his embarrassment, he felt like a huge liar, like her sympathy was falsely deserved.

  
     Wrapping his arms around himself, and keeping his back to Ladybug, Adrien apologized for his outburst. “I’m sorry I went -” he searched for a word, “crazy on you. I never cry.”

  
     He felt a hand on his arm, and Ladybug's soft voice said, “Well, maybe you ought to more frequently.”

  
     Adrien turned to her. Ladybug's pink lips were pursed in a frown, and her eyebrows were furrowed. In her eyes he saw more kindness and concern than he had received from anyone since his mother had disappeared from his life. He fought the tears that threatened to fill his eyes again.

  
     “Look,” he lied, “don’t get me wrong. There’s a ledge under my bedroom window. I can jump down to it. Since gymnastics class. I was - I was just sneaking out.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t know whether Ladybug would buy his story or not - she was probably too smart to be taken in - but he couldn't’ stand the feeling that somehow he was stealing her sympathy.

  
     “Okay…” was all she said, uncertainly. Then she reached for his hand, gently tugged it out of his pocket, and led him over to a boxy ventilation unit, where they could sit. She wanted to ask what Nathalie had said to him, but she didn’t want to disclose that she had been spying on him. So instead she asked, “Why were you sneaking out?”

  
     “It’s -” he started, then, “Because -” Adrien stopped, the weight of his sadness forcing the words back down his throat. Finally, he said the simplest, most honest answer, “I miss my mom.” He stared out into the night.

  
     Ladybug fumbled for his hand, and silently squeezed it. The two sat like that for a long time.

  
     It was Adrien who finally broke the silence. “I never cry,” he said again, “I’m sorry I fell apart on you.”

  
     “I’m not,” Ladybug replied. Adrien glanced at her, and the love he felt for her steadily warmed his heart, chasing away the shadows left by Nathalie, his father, and his mom. “I suspect,” Ladybug said, thinking about Adrien’s behavior at school, “that you probably keep a lot more in than you should.”

  
     Adrien was quiet for a moment, then sighed softly and said, “You’re probably right.”

  
     “I wish I could make things better for you,” Ladybug replied.

  
     Adrien pulled her hand up into his lap. Still holding it, he traced the lines of her palm, then gently twined his fingers through hers. “You already have,” he said, “You’ve done a lot.” Then he looked up, and their gazes caught, and locked. Ladybug suddenly felt breathless, and she wet her lips with just the tip of her tongue. Adrien dropped his gaze to her mouth, then looked back up into her wide, blue eyes. He reached out one hand, and softly stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “A lot,” he repeated.

  
     Ladybug was caught in a timeless vacuum, unable to do anything but stare at Adrien. Her heart was beating wildly, frissons of electricity were shooting through her entire body, and her stomach was turning somersaults.

  
     Slowly, Adrien leaned forward and kissed her cheek. He pulled back, searching her eyes. Bright green met wide, bright blue, both glistening in the moonlight. Leaning forward again, Adrien tentatively, questioningly, placed his lips on hers. A soft kiss. A test kiss. He peeked through hooded eyes to find that Ladybug had closed hers, and he felt her lean slightly in towards him.

  
     Adrien kissed her again, this time leaning into the kiss and raising his hand to cup her cheek. He could feel the edge of her mask against his fingertips. His lips moved over hers, and when he heard her sigh, and when suddenly she kissed him back with even more enthusiasm than he was granting to himself, Adrien thought his world was exploding. His Ladybug - _his_ Ladybug - was kissing him!

  
     Adrien pulled back, still cupping Ladybug’s cheek, to stare at her. Slowly her eyes fluttered open. Her cheeks were an enchanting pink. Adrien just wanted to gaze at her, to drown in her eyes, to lose himself in the fact that Ladybug kissed him, wanted to kiss him, wanted him to kiss her.

  
     “Hi,” he said softly, his eyes playing over her face.

  
     She turned bright red, and dropped her gaze, “H- H- Hi,” she managed to echo.

  
     “Ladybug?” Adrien said. He had to be careful, he’d almost called her Bugaboo.

  
     Ladybug raised her eyes to his, and Adrien smiled at her. Leaning forward, he closed his eyes as again their lips met. This time, Adrien wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. He felt her hands rest hesitantly on his shoulders, but as he deepened the kiss, her hands came to grip him, like she was holding on.

  
     All thoughts of the ugliness earlier in the evening were gone. Adrien’s whole world was sitting before him, kissing him with as much affection as he was kissing her. Instead of feeling small and cold, Adrien’s heart seemed to expand, to blossom, and its warmth lighted his whole being. It was many minutes later, when Adrien was fighting his hunger to move beyond the kiss, that he broke away. Both Adrien and Ladybug were breathless, and he could feel her heart racing as fast as his.

  
     Adrien pulled her forward and hugged her, resting his cheek on the silky softness of her hair. It took Ladybug a moment, and then she was relaxing into the hug. After a minute, Adrien murmured, “We had to stop. I had to stop.”

  
     Ladybug shifted beneath his cheek, and agreed, “Yeah.”

  
     Adrien gently pushed himself away from her, but he couldn’t help but draw his hand down her shoulders, along her muscular arms in the tight suit, and finally grasp her hands. He couldn't let go of their connection yet. Searching for something to say, finally Adrien settled on, “Thank you for catching me.”

  
     A smile tugged on Ladybug’s mouth. “Yeah,” she said, “Anytime.” Her eyes were luminous as she stared at Adrien’s face, and then Ladybug said, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  
     The hint of a bitter smile ghosted Adrien’s lips, and he said, “I’m usually alone. I’m good at doing alone.”

  
     Ladybug frowed and looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were glistening like she was on the verge of tears. “I really don’t want to leave you,” she admitted.

  
     Adrien smiled at her, and reassured her as best he could, “I promise, I’m okay now. You’ve done a lot to make me feel better.” His smile grew a little wider, like they were sharing a private joke. Adrien looked away and thought about how long it had been since anyone had shown him actual physical affection. Not since his mom. It felt nice.  
Looking back at Ladybug, Adrien squeezed her fingers and said, “Honestly, I can’t think of anything better than being with you. Thank you.” Ladybug’s mouth made a little ‘O’ of surprise.

  
     After a moment she said, “You know, anytime you want to talk, I’d love to listen.” Mentally she kicked herself. That sounded so saccharine, so over the top.

  
     But Adrien smiled, and said, “Thanks. I might just take you up on that.” Finally, he looked around the rooftop of the mansion, then got to his feet. “Anyway, I think you have to get me back down to my room.” He tugged her up to stand next to him.

  
     “Right.” Ladybug covered her swooney-feeling by sounding business-like and crisp. Adrien dropped her hands, and she turned to walk to the edge of the roof. “Ready?” she asked.

  
     Adrien walked up and with no hesitation wrapped his arms around her neck. Ladybug placed one hand around his waist, then shot her yoyo out to swing in an arc across the street, and then through the large window that still stood open. She landed with two quick steps inside Adrien’s room, and when he unwrapped his arms from around her neck, she reluctantly let him go.

  
     “Ladybug, thank you,” Adrien said. Then, placing his hands on her shoulders, he drew her forward until he could drop a gentle kiss on her lips. “Will you come visit me again?” he asked in a whisper.

  
     Ladybug nodded her head before her mouth could form the words, “Uh huh.”

  
     “You better go. It’s getting late,” Adrien said. If she stayed any longer in his bedroom, he would swoop her up in another shattering kiss, and Adrien wasn’t sure his emotions were up to that right now.

  
     “Right,” Ladybug said again, and Adrien smiled. She felt like her thoughts were moving through molasses, and she was having a hard time keeping up with this momentous night. “Okay, well, take care,” she said, then crossing to the window, she gracefully leaped up into the frame. Stealing one last, backward glance, Ladybug threw her yoyo out into the darkness and disappeared.

  
     Adrien crossed over to his bed and sat down. He put his head in his hands, and replayed the whole evening in his mind. He had kissed Ladybug. He had actually kissed Ladybug.

  
     A small sound next to him broke his concentration, and then Plagg’s voice asked, “You okay?”

  
     “Yeah, I’m okay,” Adrien replied.

  
     With only a hint of his normal irreverence, Plagg commented, “Well, that didn’t turn out so badly.”

  
     Chuckling a little, Adrien agreed, “No, Plagg, it didn’t.” Then he fell back onto his bed, and shut his eyes.

                   **********************

     Ladybug barely made it halfway home before she started hyperventilating and had to stop.

  
     “Ohmigod, ohmigod,” she repeated to herself, like some karmic chant. She had kissed Adrien! She had KISSED Adrien! Awe and excitement bubbled up inside of her, and Ladybug wanted nothing other than to call Alya and tell her all about it.

  
     But, she couldn’t. The realization was like a bucket of cold water dumped on her head. Of everything that had happened tonight, the wonderful and the scary, there was no one Ladybug could tell it to. Ladybug sat on a high rooftop, with her back against a chimney, her arms wrapped around her knees. She wished desperately that she could tell Alya about the kiss, that she could discuss Adrien’s scary behavior with her parents and get some advice. Suddenly, she realized that there was one person, great at giving advice and privy to all of these secrets: Tikki! Jumping up, Ladybug rushed home in order to transform.

                ***********************

     “How much do you already know?” Marinette asked Tikki less than ten minutes later.

  
     “I can sense the emotions, but I can only hear words if there’s something really intense happening. I know something very scary happened, Marinette, and I heard you say no, no, many times. What happened?”

  
     Marinette told the whole story to Tikki, from the very beginning. At various times Tikki gasped, sighed, and shook her head.

  
     “So I can’t really tell,” Marinette said, “was he, you know...” She did not want to say the words, the idea still too horrible to imagine, “Was he trying to hurt himself, or really just sneaking out?”

  
     Tikki sat still on the edge of Marinette’s pink chaise lounge, thinking. Finally she concluded, “I don’t know. But I do know that you’re right, he needs to start talking to someone. It sounds like he’s in a lot of distress.” Tikki mulled over the situation some more, then asked, “Who are his friends he can talk to?”

  
     Marinette mentally pulled herself back from thinking about their kisses, and dropping her fingers from her lips, she answered, “Nino and Chloe, I guess.”

  
     “I’m not sure either of them would be easy for Adrien to talk to,” Tikki said.

  
     “I know.”

  
     “Marinette, I think you should talk to him. I mean, both as Ladybug and as Marinette. Obviously he trusts you as Ladybug,” Tikki’s voice was full of concern, “but especially until you can tell for sure whether he was thinking of suicide or not, you must be there for him.” Marinette cringed at the word, and Tikki saw. “Marinette, you mustn’t be frightened to reach out to him. Regardless, he obviously needs someone. And if you think at all that he was serious about hurting himself, you _must_ tell someone.”

  
     “But how can I, Tikki, without disclosing that I’m Ladybug?”

  
     “We’ll think of something, or you can just do it as Ladybug.”

  
     “I just wish there were some way I could check on him right now. I shouldn’t have left him.”

  
     Tikki smothered a yawn, and said, “If you get me a couple of cookies, I’m happy to go out one more time.”

  
     Marinette turned grateful eyes on her kwami, “Thank you, Tikki.”

  
     And so it was within a handful of minutes that Ladybug found herself again swinging quickly through the streets of Paris. The city was much quieter now, and she could hear a church bell in the distance ring out one single gong. Ladybug arrived at the Agreste mansion to find it mostly dark. Lowering herself from the rooftop above Adrien’s window, Ladybug hung upside down to peek into his bedroom. In the darkness, Ladybug could make out Adrien’s golden hair ruffled against his pillow, the blankets pulled up almost to his chin. A little stuffed animal lay on the pillow next to him.

  
     Ladybug let out a quiet sigh of relief, not realizing until that moment just how anxious she had been. Carefully she raised herself back up onto the roof. Within twenty minutes she was back in her own bedroom, transforming. “Thank you, Tikki! Adrien was sound asleep in bed.”

  
     Tikki’s voice was also relieved when she replied, “I’m glad you checked.” Then she let out a huge yawn for her little body, and flitted up to Marinette's bed. Peeking over the edge, Tikki said, “I’m going to sleep now too.”

  
     “I’ll be right up,” Marinette said. She looked at her homework, still sprawled across her desk where she had hastily left it earlier. She could either force herself to stay up even later, do a crummy job of it, but turn it in tomorrow, or she could climb into bed now and take two incompletes.

  
     Stifling a yawn large enough to compete with Tikki’s, Marinette turned to get ready for bed. It only took a few minutes before she was curled up beneath her blankets. As soon as her eyes closed, she was again on the rooftop with Adrien, with him pulling her close. She drifted off to sleep with the feel of his lips on hers, and her dreams were the most contented they had been in a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

     Marinette was late to school. Her alarm clock simply could not compete with her long night, and the excellent dreams that sent her burrowing into her pillow. So it was with the usual embarrassment, plus a large dose of excitement, that she slipped into class and snuck into her seat.

     Alya gave her a quick grin, and pushed a couple of handouts over to her. Marinette pulled out her tablet and stylus, and avoided the teacher’s eye. Very soon, however, she realized that the only learning she would accomplish that day would be by force of will. Her eyes constantly drifted from Mme Bustier to Adrien’s golden hair. At one point, Adrien turned to whisper something to Nino, and with a clear view of Adrien’s profile and his lips, Marinette sighed. Beside her, Alya snickered.

     When the first break came, Alya stretched her arms over her head while asking, “How come you were late today?”

     “Oh, I stayed up really late,” Marinette replied. “Did you sleep well?” she asked Alya.

     “Uh, sure,” Alya replied, looking crosswise at Marinette.

     “How ‘bout you, Nino? Adrien?” Marinette felt like she was choking Adrien’s name out, nervous that he would figure out that he was the real target of her questions, “Did you guys sleep well?”

     The boys turned to Marinette, and Nino said, “Uh huh.” Clearly he thought no more of it. But Adrien answered, “Yeah, thanks,” and then a sweet smile flashed across his face before he looked back down at his desk. He fidgeted with a pencil a bit, then glanced up to find Marinette staring at him. Her face was unreadable, and he was puzzled at her stare.  With an obvious start, Marinette’s cheeks suffused bright red and she quickly looked down at her desk.

     Marinette stared down at her tablet, feeling the heat of her blush and wishing it would go away. She was sure Adrien must have seen the dreamy look in her eyes when she was staring at him. He seemed fine today, normal, but she knew now that his appearance was not necessarily how he felt.

     Marinette felt a nudge on her side, and there was Alya whispering, “You alright, girl? You’re acting funny. You’re kinda being obvious.”

     Marinette kept her eyes down, but nodded her head, “Yeah, yeah, I’m just tired.” She had lectured herself on the way to school to be careful, to keep in mind tha Adrien’s memories of the night would not include Marinette, yet here she was already staring greedily at him and wishing to grab his hand, pull him into the hallway, and talk to him.

     Marinette shrugged, trying to shake off her fuzzy thinking. Now was not the time for fantasizing; Tikki’s words sounded in her head, and Marinette tried to focus on building an actual friendship with Adrien instead. She turned to Alya and whispered, “Let’s you and me eat lunch with Nino and Adrien.”

     Alya looked at her, impressed, and said, “Are you doing it? Are you gonna make a move on him?”

     “No,” Marinette answered, “I was just thinking we should all be friends first.” She wished so badly that she could tell Alya all about the night before.

     “We kinda already are, aren’t we?”

     “I was thinking last night about how I don’t really know much about what he thinks about. I mean, I know all about what he _does_ , what his schedule is [Alya smirked], but not really what’s in his mind.”

     Alya pulled back and looked at Marinette quizzically. Then, she turned to Nino and Adrien and said, “Let’s all have lunch together.”

     “‘Kay,” Nino happily agreed for the two of them. Alya nodded briefly to Marinette, like ‘mission accomplished,’ and Marinette smiled back her gratitude. Then class restarted, and Marinette returned to staring dreamily at the back of Adrien’s head.

     Adrien was trying to listen to Mme Bustier’s lecture, but instead he was drawing little black spots in the margins of his notes and wondering if Ladybug really would visit him again.

     By the time lunch arrived, Marinette was begging Alya for her notes from the morning, and dragging out her math homework to try and finish it during the break.

     “C’mon, dude,” Nino said to Adrien as the friends scooted out of their seats, “We’re all going to lunch.”

     Adrien looked around, “We are?” he asked.

     “Yeah, come on.”

     “Right, right,”  Nathalie would be expecting him home.  Adrien clenched his fists and stared for a moment at the desk.  _To hell with them_ , he thought, then grabbed his books and tablet. The four trooped down to the lunchroom, where half of the tables sat empty. “Do you guys normally eat here?” Adrien asked.

     “Mostly,” Alya replied. She pulled money out of her pocket and asked Adrien, “Do you have a lunch or are you buying?”

     “Uh,” Adrien looked uncomfortable. “I don’t have a lunch, but I’m good.” Instead, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and typed out a text message. <Marceau, taking lunch at school.> Adrien closed his messages app, feeling a little reckless and anxious. He knew his bodyguard would immediately report to Nathalie that Adrien was not coming home for lunch, and that Nathalie would probably report directly to his father. Whether he got a text or phone call now, or had the pleasure of anticipating a nasty lecture from his father as soon as he got home, he didn’t know, but he felt himself already tensing for the conflict.

     Alya looked at him confused and asked, “You’re not eating?”

     “Nah, I’m good,” Adrien replied.

     It was Marinette who figured out Adrien’s dilemma. “Do you have any money to buy?” she asked quietly.

     A very slight blush tinted Adrien’s cheeks, but he raised his chin and shook his head. “Really, I’m good,” he tried to convince them.

     Nino had no time for subtlety. “Dude, your Dad is lame. All that money and you don’t have enough for lunch?”

     Adrien, anticipating a lecture already from home, did not want to sit through one from his friends. Trying hard not to sound defensive, Adrien remarked, “I wasn’t planning on eating at school, okay? Lay off my Dad.” Just then his phone vibrated, and Adrien felt himself tense up even more.

     He had received a text from Nathalie, but it was not what he expected. Adrien stared at the screen, waiting for the next text, the sharp one that he knew was coming, but his phone lay silent in his hands.

     “Here,” Marinette had pulled her sandwich in half, and pushed it and some fresh strawberries towards Adrien, “you can have some of mine. I never finish my lunch anyway.”

     Adrien was still staring at the phone, unsure what was going on at the other end of his texts, but he glanced sideways at Marinette and said, “No, it’s okay, I’m fine.” He didn’t want to tell the table that Nathalie was sending a lunch for him as if he were still a baby.

     Marinette smiled, but Adrien caught a shadow of something like sadness in her eyes as she said, “Really, I’m serious. It’ll just go to waste anyway.”

     “Okay…” Adrien slowly accepted the handout.

     With that, Alya turned to buy her lunch and called, “Be right back.”

     Nino tossed a plastic bag of chips at Adrien. “You can have these too. But nothing else, dude,” Nino quipped, trying to puncture the tension around the table, “I’m hungry!”

     “Thanks, Nino,” Adrien said, and the two friends shared a look of understanding.

     It didn’t take Marinette long to finish her lunch, and then she pulled out her math homework while the others chatted. She was typing numbers into the calculator app on her phone when one of Adrien’s graceful fingers tapped her paper and he said in a low voice, “That’s wrong.”

     “What?” Marinette asked, raising her eyes.

     Adrien was looking at her paper, scanning her work, and said, “It’s negative three ‘x’, not three ‘x’.”

     “Oh,” Marinette said, uncomfortably.

     “See here?” Adrien pointed, “You dropped the negative sign when you divided.”

     “Right,” Marinette replied, and quickly changed her answer. She couldn’t decide whether she was more grateful or embarrassed, but she tacked on, “Thanks.” Marinette looked at Adrien out of the corner of her eye. She still had a hard time believing that she had kissed him last night, that his hands had stroked her face. Again her cheeks grew warm, and Marinette cleared her throat to try to clear her mind as well.  Remembering Tikki's admonition, she turned to Adrien and asked hesitantly, “Which, uh, which subject do you like better, Chinese or geometry? I mean, you’re good at both, right?”

     Adrien bit into a strawberry while he considered his answer, and Marinette was happy to wait, watching him. She heard Alya, across the table, laugh.

     Glancing briefly at Alya, Adrien turned back to Marinette and answered, “I like math better. Chinese is really useful, though, but I like how math always has a right answer.”

     Marinette nodded her head and joked, “Not if it’s my homework, it doesn’t!” But she wondered if there was a hidden meaning to what Adrien had said. Alya again was making funny noises across the table, and when Marinette looked at her, Alya quickly winked.

     Adrien looked back down at the math problems Marinette had already done and said, “That one’s right… and that… that one…” He found only one other mistake for Marinette to correct, and then she continued working on the rest of her homework, feeling very self-conscious at what she thought was her slow pace. Periodically Adrien would glance over and double-check her work; “Is it okay if I do that?” he first asked.

     “Oh, yes please!” Marinette had replied, fantasizing that they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

     By the time lunch was over, Marinette had only one more problem set to go and couldn’t stop saying thank you. As the four headed back to their classroom, Adrien excused himself and detoured to the front office. His lunch, delivered by his bodyguard, was waiting for him. Adrien peeked in, checking out the food and looking for a note. There was nothing from Nathalie or his father. Walking quickly across the courtyard, Adrien pulled out the camembert that someone had thought to include in the lunch, and then dumped the rest of it in a garbage can.

     Getting to his locker, Adrien slid the cheese onto the shelf and Plagg hastened to follow it. He exclaimed, “Finally!” and wrapped his little arms around the disk. Chuckling, Adrien left Plagg in the locker and returned to class. Now he had a doubly hard time concentrating, with one part of his mind wondering about Ladybug, and the other part trying to analyze Nathalie’s behavior, and anticipating his reception at home.

     As the school day ended, the students fled out into the early Spring sunshine. Adrien’s bodyguard was waiting to drive him to his Chinese lessons. When Nino, Alya, and Marinette lingered to say goodbye to Adrien, Marinette caught a flash of hardness, maybe bitterness, cross Adrien’s face as he glanced at some students slowly strolling arm in arm towards the Seine’s riverwalk. But the flash was almost instantly gone, replaced with Adrien’s normal cheerful expression. Marinette checked the time on her phone, calculating how many hours until she could see Adrien again.

                 ************************

     Night had fallen long ago, yet still Adrien sat at his desk, half-heartedly working on homework. He stifled a yawn, the previous evenings adventures catching up to him. In his shadowy corner, Plagg remarked a little crossly, “How much longer are you going to wait up?”

     “I’m not waiting up,” Adrien unnecessarily lied to his kwami. “I’m doing homework. Go to sleep if you want,”

     “Right,” Plagg’s voice was sarcastic, dubious.

     “And just in case, keep hidden,” Adrien added, giving up all pretence of pride. He heard Plagg snicker, but then was left with silence again.

     Only a short time later, a knock echoed through the room. It was a knock on glass, not wood, and Adrien’s heart leapt. Jumping out of his chair, he turned quickly to the windows, where in the darkness he could barely see Ladybug hanging from her yoyo.

     Adrien tried to keep the excitement off his face as he hurried across his bedroom. Welcoming was what he was going for, not ‘over-eager head-over-heels I’ll-do-anything-for-you’ as he suspected his expression showed.

     Pushing open the window, Adrien said, “Hey.”

     “Hi,” Ladybug smiled at him. “I’m here to check up on you.” She winked, hoping to lighten the serious tone of her words.

     “Wanna come in?” Adrien invited.

     “Thanks,” Ladybug swung gracefully through the window and landed. “Um, how - how are you?” she asked, suddenly awkward with words.

     Adrien grabbed her hand and led her over to his wide white sofa. “I’m fine. I’m great, actually.” He pulled her down to sit close to him, and Ladybug tried hard not to blush. It felt like a dream to be here, to have Adrien tugging her down to sit close to him. Unreal.

     “Really?” Ladybug pressed. “‘Cause I think that sometimes you don’t share your real emotions.” Ugh, did that sound too pushy? Too maternal?

     But Adrien just smiled. “No, honestly, I am. Here, I’ll prove it: Today I stayed at school for lunch, and instead of getting angry with me, my dad and his assistant, a woman named Nathalie, they didn’t even care. They just ignored it!”

     Ladybug couldn’t hide her shock when she replied, “They’d get angry with you for eating at school?”

     Suddenly Adrien realized just how much he had disclosed with his single sentence, and he shuttered his face and pulled his hand from hers. With a vanilla smile pasted to his lips, he explained, “Well, you know, just because I didn’t plan it.”

     Ladybug saw the change come over him. Following her instincts, she said, “No, I don’t know. Why would they care if you didn’t plan it?”

     “Well,” Ladybug could almost see Adrien’s mind whirring, “I just put them out. I mean, my bodyguard had to scramble to bring me a lunch, and… and stuff.”

     “Hmm.” Ladybug nodded neutrally. So, his bodyguard had brought a lunch to school? Either he was lying now, or he had lied at lunch, and Ladybug couldn’t figure out which it was and why it would matter. She changed tack, “Who did you eat with?”

     “Oh, just some friends,” Adrien said, his face losing some of its tension.

     “Who? I mean, I know some of the people at Francoise Dupont High School.”

     “You do?” Adrien sat up straighter.

     “Uh, sure,” Ladybug laughed nervously, hoping she hadn’t given too much away, “I mean, I’ve been there on a few akuma attacks.”

     “Oh, right,” Adrien said, sinking back down into the sofa’s cushions.

     “So, who did you eat with?” she tried again.

     “My friends Nino, and Marinette and Alya.”

     Ladybug smiled to hear Adrien refer to her as a friend. She said, “Oh, I know those guys!”

     “Really?” Adrien said, “How?”

     “Oh, you know,” Ladybug waved her hand, as if pushing away the question. Instead she said, “They're all nice. I hope you talk to them when you’re having a bad day?” A little mischievous devil prompted her to add, “Especially Marinette. She’s really nice, and understanding. I’ve spoken to her a lot, in fact.”

     “You have?” Adrien narrowed his eyes at her and sat forward.

      _Uh oh_ , Ladybug thought. She _had_ gone too far.

     “She’s never said anything.”

     “Well -” Ladybug giggled nervously, trying to extricate herself from this one, “That’s one reason I like her! She’s really good at keeping a secret.”

     “Hmm…” Adrien sat back against the sofa, thinking. How did Ladybug know his friends, especially Marinette? Was it really just because of the akuma attacks? If he could figure out _how_ she knew them, he might figure out who she was. Unconsciously, still wrapped in his thoughts, Adrien pulled Ladybug’s hand into his own and started playing with her fingers, like he had the night before.

     Clearly Adrien had no concept of what he was doing to her, Ladybug thought, as her heart began pounding and her breathing became uneven. Funny sensations were zipping through her body, starting in her stomach and going… everywhere! Squirming, Ladybug yanked her hand away from him and jumped off of the sofa. She started pacing instead. “Uh, yeah, anyway…” she babbled.

     Adrien rose too, unsure of Ladybug’s reaction. “I’m sorry,” he started, “I didn’t mean to…” Maybe he shouldn’t have touched her. Maybe last night was a fluke. Maybe she just wanted to be friends.

     “No, it’s okay, it’s just… I, um…” Ladybug shook her hands out, like one would if they were cramped. She turned her back on Adrien, instead staring out the window.

     “Look,” Adrien tried again, and reached forward to put a hand on her arm. He knew he had overstepped some boundary; he had to remind himself that Ladybug would not feel the same ease and comfortableness around him as he did around her; she would not have the memories of almost a year of defeating villains together to build upon.

     But suddenly, Ladybug turned and launched herself at him. Grabbing his shoulders, she pulled them together and kissed him, a little too hard, very unpracticed, right on the mouth. Her eyes were round as saucers, as if she had shocked herself as well as him, but Adrien felt only happiness and relief flood him. Their lips still locked together, Adrien closed his eyes and raised his hands to cup Ladybug’s elbows.

     Tentatively, Ladybug softened her kiss and tried again, moving her mouth more gently over Adrien’s. She felt his lips soften, felt him smile, but still he just stood placidly, letting her kiss him. Maybe it was a little bit frustration, maybe a little embarrassment at his lack of participation, but Ladybug suddenly nipped him gently on his full lower lip. Adrien hummed, and wrapped his arms around Ladybug’s waist, pulling her close, while Ladybug wound her arms around his neck and her fingers into his silky hair. The skintight suit encasing Ladybug was driving Adrien crazy, and each time Ladybug deepened the kiss, Adrien plunged right down with her.

     His hands were splayed across her back and at the small of her waist, when he broke away from her mouth to kiss her cheek and then jawline and chin. He wanted to nuzzle against her neck, but her damn suit came up too high.

     Ladybug had thrown her head back, reveling in the feel of Adrien’s mouth on her skin. Gripping his hair, Ladybug pulled Adrien’s head back, and stared at him. Then, she mimicked what he had done to her, running wet kisses along his jawline and down his neck.

     Instinctively Adrien knew that Ladybug had gone too far for him, and moving his hands to her cheeks, he gently tilted her head back, saying, “I can’t - don’t -” Her eyes, so wide, were like dark pools of midnight blue.

     The two stood, staring at each other, for what seemed like an eternity.

     Ladybug was the first to say anything, and it was merely an incoherent, “Uh…”

     Adrien simply replied, “Wow.”

     Ladybug looked away, with a smile. Moving his arms to circle her waist, Adrien held her in a close hug and said over the top of her head, “Maybe we better keep a chaperone in the room from now on.” Even now, his hands itched to glide lower, to cup her body up closer against his.

     Ladybug giggled her agreement. She wove her arms through Adrien’s, to hug him back. She could feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he could feel her voice when she said, “You know, I’ve had a crush on you for a long time.”

     Adrien was silent for a moment, feeling her words, and then he realized what she had said. Pulling back he asked astounded, “What? Really?”

     Ladybug nodded, a silly grin on her face.

     “How?”

     “I’ve wanted to tell you since forever.”

     “But how do you know me?” Adrien asked. A quick frown appeared on his face and he answered his own question, “Oh, the model thing.” He sounded deflated.

     Ladybug’s answer, however, was cryptic. “Well, uh, not really. I’ve seen you around. And sometimes we’ve met on akuma attacks. But anyway, I think I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

     Suddenly the mood between them plunged from romantic to earnest.

     Adrien solemnly answered, “I wish you did.”

     “Me too,” Ladybug replied.

     And then, Adrien smiled, and it was like the sun came out again. “I’ve had a crush on your for a long time too, you know.”

     Ladybug’s face lit up, “Really?”

     “Oh, yeah,” Adrien said.

     But in her turn, Ladybug’s face fell a little, and she said, “Oh, I guess with the whole superhero thing.”

     “Hmm,” Adrien said. He couldn’t think of a way to contradict her without disclosing their true relationship. “I guess. It’s more than that, but anyway, I think we should become friends.”

     “Friends? Like, friend friends?” Ladybug asked, confused.

     “Kissing friends,” Adrien clarified with a grin.

     Ladybug laughed, and said, “Kissing with a chaperone friends.”

     “For sure!” Adrien agreed, sharing the joke. “Come back,” he said, “Come back tomorrow, and talk, and kiss. Okay?”

     Ladybug snuggled her head against Adrien’s chest, then smiled joyfully up at him and replied, “Okay!”

     The grin faded from Adrien’s lips, and he dropped a soft kiss on the tip of Ladybug’s nose. Then slowly, he lowered his head, and Ladybug met his lips with her own. It was a long, slow kiss of adieu, full of promise, and conspiracy, and affection. When they finally ended it, harmoniously, Ladybug hugged him tightly one last time before she turned to go.

     “See you,” she said, leaping into the window frame. Then, she swung into the night.

     Adrien smiled softly to her retreating shadow, and whispered, “Bug out.”


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning over breakfast, Adrien was treated to a further shock. As Nathalie was going over the day’s schedule, she calmly asked, “Will you be returning home for lunch or do you require that a lunch be packed?”

“Uh,” Adrien stuttered, caught completely by surprise. He tried to discern if this was some sort of trap. Nathalie calmly waited for his response however, her fingers poised above her tablet. “Uh, could you please pack a lunch?” he tested.

“Fine.” Nathalie replied. Her fingers danced over the tablet’s surface, and then she said, “Tomorrow you have a photoshoot at lunchtime, and on Friday your father will be taking lunch at home.” She flicked a glance at him, her expression inscrutable. 

“Right, so, uh, I’ll be having lunch at home on Friday,” Adrien answered her unspoken question. 

“Fine,” Nathalie replied, tapped her tablet, then turned and left. 

Adrien stared after her, bemused.

*******************************************

“Girl!” Alya hissed at Marinette. “Marinette!” she tried again.

Startled, Marinette dropped the fist she had been resting her head on a looked over at Alya.

Alya’s expression said everything: Marinette was staring so obviously at Adrien, that everyone in the class would see it. Hastily, Marinette looked around. Kim was watching her, and as soon as he caught her eye, he started making kissing motions with his mouth, pointed to Adrien, and started laughing silently. Marinette shot him a threatening look. Then she saw Rose, who was looking at Marinette with a sweet, understanding, and encouraging smile. Slumping a little in her seat, Marinette checked on Chloe and Sabrina. Luckily they were flicking through their cell phones hidden on their laps.

Alya shook her head as if Marinette were a lost cause, then quickly scratched out a note to her and passed it across the desk. ‘You have to ask him out!!!’

‘I can’t! I want to get to know him better’

‘Ask him to coffee after school’

‘Ask him to ice cream! We can all go. Please…?!’ Marinette drew a puppy dog face with big eyes.

Rolling her eyes, Alya mouthed, “Okay,” and waited for their first break. When it came, she leaned forward to Nino and Adrien and said, ”Hey, today’s supposed to be pretty nice. Wanna get ice cream after school?”

Nino’s face lit up, but Adrien’s became blank. With no emotion in his voice, Adrien said, “I can’t, I have to go home.”

“Can you… can you have lunch today?” Marinette surprised herself by asking.

Adrien relaxed into a smile and said, “Yeah, I brought a lunch today!”

“Let’s at least eat outside,” Nino suggested. And so, at the end of morning classes, the four again found themselves slipping out of their seats to head together to lunch.

Skipping down the front steps of the school, Alya winked at Marinette and then moved up to walk next to Nino. Adrien casually shifted to walk beside Marinette, who bit her lip to try to hide the excitement from her face.

In a low voice, Adrien asked, “You know Ladybug?”

Marinette had been half expecting this question. She was supposed to be discreet, so she cagily answered, “Sort of. Why?”

“How do you know her?” Adrien asked.

“I’ve run into her around. We’ve talked. I - I’ve seen her at akuma attacks.”

“Right,” Adrien said noncommittally. “You know, she speaks pretty highly of you.”

“That’s nice,” Marinette replied. She was more uncomfortable with this wordplay than she had expected, and was wishing she hadn’t said anything to Adrien the previous night. Deceiving Adrien was a lie, and the lie sat like a stone in the pit of her stomach; she decided to change the subject. Knowing that he didn’t have anything on his regular schedule after school, and wondering why he couldn’t come to ice cream, she asked, “What are you doing after school?”

Adrien was thinking about Ladybug when he answered, “Just some homework, I guess.”

“So why can’t you come to ice cream?” Marinette asked, surprised. The minute she said it, she remembered Adrien’s comment the night before about taking lunch at school.

Marinette's question brought Adrien back to earth with a bump. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, a lie beginning to form in his mind to hide the embarrassing truth of his overbearing father, when Ladybug’s voice sounded in his memories: “I suspect you keep a lot more in than you should,” and, “Especially Marinette. She’s really nice, and understanding.”

Adrien bit the inside of his cheek, considering. Then, taking a breath, he tested out a confidence, “My dad wants me to come home directly after school.”

Marinette made a little ‘O’ of surprise, and her expression teased a vague memory for Adrien, but he couldn’t pinpoint it.

Adrien’s answer surprised Marinette. Mulling over what he had said, she asked, “He doesn’t like your friends?”

“No, it’s not that. Well,” Adrien added after a pause, “He probably doesn’t.” At Marinette’s look he reassured her, “Oh, not because of you. I mean, you guys. It’s more the *existence* of you that he probably doesn’t like.”

“He doesn’t want you to have friends?” Marinette half-stated, half-asked it.

“Mmm…” Adrien muttered. The bitterness of his answer was impossible to miss. “Anything that lessens his control over me,” Adrien said. Then he pressed his mouth closed, feeling like he had said too much.

There was a heavy, but thoughtful silence between the two as they followed Alya and Nino across the street. Then Marinette asked, “Was he like this before your mom, you know…?”

Adrien shrugged with one shoulder. “Not really. Kinda. A little.” He thought back to his mother, floating around his father with a teasing laugh and a twirl, of his dad grabbing and hugging his wife, of his mom tickling his dad’s waist and teasing him out of gloominess. 

“So he’s afraid of losing you, too, I guess, huh?” Marinette’s voice broke through his reverie.

“I guess,” Adrien answered dully.

“But he’s got to let you go sooner or later!” Marinette said.

Adrien only answered, “Look, let’s not talk about this, okay?” Memories of his mother echoed through his brain. “Let’s eat there,” he called to Nino and Alya, stepping away from Marinette and pointing to the river wall.

Marinette watched Adrien walk away, and tried hard not to pity him.

**************  
The four ate their lunches in the sunshine next to the Seine. Nino stretched out on the broad river wall, while Adrien slouched on a green bench. Marinette sat on the same bench, careful to keep a distance between Adrien and herself, to respect his need for space after their intense discussion, at least until Alya showed up and told her to scoot over. The four chatted about nothing consequential: schoolwork, teachers, a crack in the wall of the science classroom, that looked like a rabbit. Ultimately they did get ice cream. Alya and Marinette skipped off to buy four cones from a local cafe, and when they handed the boys their cones, Adrien smiled glowingly and stated, “Next time, our treat.” The tension that had arisen between Adrien and Marinette soon evaporated, and Adrien was back to his old cheerful disposition, and Marinette was back to her normal easy kindness, sneaking adoring looks at Adrien when she though no one was looking.

***************  
The akuma attack came while Adrien was being driven home from school. A horde of normal Parisians, their faces wiped clean of any intelligent emotion, rushed directly in front of the car as they smashed through the front doors of an electronics store. Marceau had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting them.

Before the stragglers of the horde had even gotten into the store, some were already pushing their way out, their arms laden with stolen goods. They all marched in unison in the same direction.

Adrien could hear his bodyguard swearing under his breath as he jerked the car into reverse. They were only a couple of blocks from the Agreste mansion, and with Marceau taking back streets, got home within five minutes. The gates to the compound locked solidly behind them.

Adrien jumped out of the car and rushed directly to his room. Throwing his backpack into a corner, he shot his fist out and called, “Plagg, Claws Out!”

Plagg swirled into Adrien’s ring, and he felt the floor drop out from under him. The nanoseconds feeling of weightlessness was always exhilarating, and as Adrien felt the supple leather suit encasing his body, he grinned. Stretching his arms to claw the air in front of him, Cat Noir then grabbed his baton from his belt and pelted to the window.

Within minutes he had tracked the throngs of thieves to a warehouse. Like busy ants, they were disappearing into the building with arms laden with clothes, jewels, electronics, and toys, then reappearing empty-handed, setting mechanically off for more.

“Cat Noir!” Cat Noir heard Ladybug’s voice from a distance, and he scanned the rooftops around him. Half a block away, Ladybug was at the peak of a building and waving broadly to him. The afternoon sun silhouetted her lithe body, and Cat Noir’s heart jumped. Shooting out his baton, he vaulted to her.

“MiLady,” he greeted with a grin.

Ladybug just smiled at him, then pointed down to a small square and said, “Look at this.”

From his outfit alone, Cat Noir could tell it was an akumatized villain. Dressed almost entirely in white, with sharp wing-like epaulets, the man had a huge metallic symbol that looked like a computer chip on his chest. His gloves and boots were alternately mustard yellow and red. In his hand he held a small plastic credit card, and Cat Noir watched him angle the shiny card to catch the sunlight, and reflect it into the eyes of curious onlookers. Once hit, the innocent Parisians were obviously under the control of the man.

“Bring me televisions! Jewels! Anything!” the man laughed maniacally. Suddenly pointing to two men, he cried, “You two, bring me a leather sofa! Hahaha!”

Ladybug and Cat Noir shared one quick look, then leaped into action.

“Hey there,” Cat Noir taunted, “I’m afraid you’ve reached your credit limit. Why don’t you hand over your card?”

The villain turned quickly to face Cat Noir, and answered dauntlessly, “Oh no, Charger has no limit! It is mine, everything is mine! For once I will have everything!” and he laughed insanely.

“Looks like he’s got no limit to his greed, either,” Cat Noir remarked to Ladybug.

Standing beside him, Ladybug surveyed the situation and said, “The akuma must be in that credit card.” Without a second’s pause, she shot out her yoyo to try to knock it from the fiend’s hand.

Charger wheeled out of her range, crying, “Uh uh uh! You don’t get mine; I get yours!” Angling sunlight into the eyes of two teenage boys loitering near a tree, the villain directed, “Get their miraculouses for me!” The buys turned to Ladybug and Cat Noir, and started to stalk them like automatons.

The superheroes leaped towards Charger but their eyes were on the two boys chasing them. The villain shot a beam of light directly at Ladybug and Cat Noir, and it felt as if a giant hand had slapped them from the sky. The two flew backwards, and Cat Noir automatically pulled Ladybug into him, shielding her as they landed hard and tumbled on sharp gravel.

They rolled to a stop, Ladybug on her back and Cat Noir stretched out on top of her. A completely incongruous image flashed in Cat Noir’s mind, and he smiled intimately at Ladybug. She, however, frowned ferociously back, and Cat Noir remembered belatedly that she would have no reason to think of their shared kisses. She pushed at his chest, warning, “Cat Noir…!” Grinning at her, enjoying his secret, Cat Noir rolled off of her and jumped to his feet. Stretching out his hand to help her up, he was grabbed from behind by the two teenager who had reached them.

Ladybug jumped up, leapfrogged over the trio, then sprang into a handstand to kick both of the attackers with her feet. They went flying, letting go of Cat Noir in the process. “Thanks, MiLady,” Cat Noir said, brushing himself off.

“Hands to yourself, Cat Noir,” Ladybug warned him, referring to their tumble on the gravel.

Ladybug couldn’t decipher the smug expression which flowed across Cat Noir’s face, but it infuriated her when he replied silkily, “I bet you won’t always say that.”

Smash! From nowhere, another forceful beam threw them fifteen feet. Charger was laughing again, and leaping to her feet - again - now Ladybug felt as angry at Cat Noir as she was at the villain. “Would you stop joking around and focus?” she berated him.

Cat Noir shrugged at her, chastised, then raced past her towards Charger, deflecting the villain’s strikes with his whirling baton. Ladybug ran after him, repeatedly throwing her yoyo to block the villain’s beams from Cat Noir, herself, and the innocent bystanders who were trying to flee. 

As the two bore down on him, Charger turned and ran. He disappeared down an alleyway, escaping in the direction of the warehouse where his minions were bringing the stolen goods.

The two teenage boys were relentlessly pursuing Ladybug and Cat Noir. “For heaven’s sake,” Ladybug muttered, and leading them towards an empty wooden guard’s hut on the edge of the park, Ladybug whirled, grabbed one arm of each of them, and threw them inside. As she slammed the door shut, Cat Noir shoved a heavy metal garbage can up against the door. The two boys pounded, but could not get out.

Ladybug turned and pelted out of the park, calling over her shoulder, “C’mon!” She flung her yoyo around a chimney, and started swinging through the streets. Cat Noir vaulted after her, and the two arrived just as Charger disappeared into the warehouse and slammed the door.

Ladybug and Cat Noir steadied themselves in front of the door and she said, “On three. One, two, three!” They threw their kicks in unison, and the metal door flew off its hinges.

Peering into the dim light, Cat Noir said, “Well, someone’s been busy.” Huge piles of stolen goods crowded the open cement floor, some teetering dangerously, ready to fall. Mesmerized victims of Charger milled around, dropping items off, pushing piles together, awaiting new orders. Charger was standing in the middle of the warehouse, his eyes glittering hungrily, and reaching out to pet the items stacked in the pile nearest to him.

He turned quickly as the metal door smashed in, and screaming almost hysterically, he pointed at the two of them and yelled to his minions, “Get them!”

All the milling Parisians turned and started converging inexorably on Ladybug and Cat Noir. “Ready, Cat…” Ladybug said. When the horde was within a whisper of the two superheroes, Ladybug cried, “Now!” She leaped and somersaulted through the air, over the heads of the crowd.

Cat Noir vaulted to the ceiling of the warehouse, calling, “Cataclysm!” as he leaped. Hot power surged through his arm, and as soon as he reached the iron supports of the ceiling, he raked his hand along them. The iron discolored, and jagged long bars broke free and fell in a circle around the mass of attacking civilians below. He had penned them in.

“Now it’s just you against us, Charger!” Ladybug shouted.

“No!” the fiend cried, dismayed. His hard face turned violent eyes on the two, and he said, “It is mine! You cannot take it away!” He began furiously throwing beams of power from his akumatized credit card. Ladybug and Cat Noir were so busy avoiding and deflecting the attacks, they could not go on the offensive.

Finally Ladybug leaped behind the protective baton of Cat Noir and called, “Lucky Charm!” A bright red and pink light exploded in the warehouse, and out of the sky dropped two heavy money bags.

Glancing briefly at the canvas bags which had fallen hard to the floor beside him, Cat Noir quipped, “You gonna help him pay off his debt?”

Ladybug frantically glanced around the warehouse, seeking inspiration. Cat Noir, whirling his baton, slowly kept backing the villain up towards the wall. “Hurry up, LB!” Cat Noir urged, “My arms are getting tired!”

Ladybug saw Charger step between two large piles of stolen goods, and watched them sway, barely balanced. Inspiration struck, and grabbing the two heavy money bags, she yelled out, “The weight of your greed is gonna catch up to you, Charger!” Like a discus thrower in track and field, Ladybug twirled herself around, gaining momentum for the heavy bags in her hands, and then at just the right moment let them go. They flew through the air, slowing quickly, and ending with a clanging thump against the bottoms of the two piles of stolen goods on either side of Charger.

As if in slow motion, the three watched both piles sway drunkenly, and then collapse, falling in on the villain. They could hear him scream in frustration, and just as the first items hit, Ladybug hurled her yoyo out, wrapped it around Charger’s wrist, and pulled his hand out towards her. Avoiding careening electronics, Ladybug snatched the credit card from Charger’s outstretched hand. She broke the plastic in two, and a velvety black butterfly immediately tried to flutter away. “No more evildingong for you, little akuma,” Ladybug hummed. Twirling her yoyo, she cried, “Time to de-evilize!” and tossed it after the butterfly. The yoyo snapped closed around the akuma, and Ladybug pulled the yoyo back into her hands. Drawing one finger across its surface, the yoyo opened like the wings of a ladybug, and a little white butterfly sat inside. Gently it took off, flying into the dusty air of the warehouse, and Ladybug smiled, “Bye bye, little butterfly.”

Spinning to grab the money bags peeking out from the piles of stolen items, Ladybug threw these into the air and cried victoriously, “Miraculous Ladybug!” Immediately, an explosion of red and pink Ladybug lights shot through the warehouse and out its door and windows. Within seconds confused Parisians were looking dazedly around, the warehouse was made whole and empty again, and Charger was on his knees, a purplish smoke enveloping him. When it dissipated, a normal middle-aged man, in slacks and a faded polo shirt, was left in his place. 

Looking to her left, Ladybug grinned at Cat Noir and he grinned back. They bumped their fists, “Pound it!”

In the distance sirens could be heard approaching the warehouse. The two had no concerns about the fate of the akumatized man; ever since Officer Raincomprix had transformed into Rogercop, there had been no more talk of holding akumatized victims responsible for what they had done.

Cat Noir’s ring flashed. He was losing paw pads. “Time to make a like a banana and split!” he joked. Grabbing Ladybug’s hand, Cat Noir bowed over it and placed a knightly kiss on her fingers. Then he turned tail and disappeared.

Ladybug frowned at his back. He had bowed over her hand before, but only ever kissed the air just above her hand. Between this license that he’d just taken, minor as it might seem, and his behavior earlier in the park, Ladybug was aggravated. Maybe, *maybe*, if she hadn’t started kissing Adrien, she would let Cat Noir’s overt flirtatiousness go. But now especially - Ladybug knew she wanted to say something to Cat Noir, to tell him to knock it off. So, she took off after him.

He had a head start on her, and although she called his name, he didn’t hear her. Ignoring her own disappearing spots, Ladybug swung off after Cat Noir. She wanted to say something now, while things were still fresh between them, rather than wait until they were fighting their next akuma attack.

Ladybug chased after him, but Cat Noir was hurdling rapidly along rooftops. Ladybug recognized the area - they were very near Adrien’s house. In fact, swinging around a corner, Cat Noir was leading her directly in front of the Agreste mansion. Cat Noir disappeared around its side, and within moments Ladybug followed, coming lightly to rest on the rooftop across from Adrien’s bedroom while she started to pitch her yoyo out again. But, Cat Noir had disappeared! He was not vaulting down the street, or along the rooftops around her.

A quick movement caught Ladybug’s eye, and she watched, surprised, as Cat Noir entered Adrien’s room through the window she always used. Cat Noir and Adrien were friends?! And then… Ladybug’s mouth dropped open in shock. A bright light washed over Cat Noir, transforming him, and Adrien stood in his place. A little black kwami swirled out of his ring. Ladybug clapped both her hands over her mouth, watching with amazement as Adrien grinned at the black kwami hovering near him, said something, and then ambled towards the back of his bedroom.

Ladybug twisted sideways, unnecessarily hiding herself behind the corner of the building behind her. She heard her earrings beeping - it was all she heard, it was as if the whole world had gone silent except for the beeping - and instinctively Ladybug shot out her yoyo and began to swing for home. She only got as far as the Seine when she dropped into a narrow alley, and behind a large garbage can transformed back into Marinette.

Marinette stood stock still, staring at the dirty brick wall in front of her. 

Cat Noir was… He was… Adrien was…

Her brain stuttered. It was so incredible to her, so… so… her mind was a blank. She couldn’t think of any words, of any thoughts, to explain the tumbled mess that was her mind.

Looking like the automatons they had just defeated, Marinette turned mechanically and walked out of the alley.

“Marinette!” Tikki’s sweet voice called to her. Marinette looked over her shoulder and quickly shuffled back so that Tikki could flit into her purse. “What’s wrong?” Tikki asked.

Marinette looked at her with wide eyes, then turned and picked her way past moving cars. She crossed to the river, climbed down some stone steps, and didn’t stop until she was at the river’s edge, her toes and shins right up against the wide river wall.

“Marinette!” Tikki whispered urgently, “What’s wrong?”

“Adrien is… Cat Noir is…” Marinette took a breath, looked down at Tikki, and finally said it. “Adrien is Cat Noir.”

“Ohhh…” Tikki said. After a moment, she remarked quietly, “I thought so.”

“What?” Marinette asked, astounded at Tikki’s words.

Tikki explained, “If I try, often I can sense Plagg if he’s nearby - that’s Cat Noir’s kwami. Like how I can sense emotions when you’re transformed? It’s the same feeling. So I’ve noticed that sometimes, when Adrien was near, I could feel Plagg. But it wasn’t always, and not at his house, so I wasn’t sure.”

“Can Plagg sense you? Could Adrien know that I’m Ladybug?”

Tikki snickered with a cute little snort, “Plagg has the *ability* to sense me… Whether he bothers or not, I don’t know. Usually he just thinks of his stomach!”

Marinette clambered onto the river wall and sat watching the touring boats. The Eiffel Tower was behind her, and the Trocadero was across the river, to her left. She sat silently, thinking everything through, digesting the new information and putting puzzle pieces together. After a while she commented, “Well, at least I can’t really be angry at him for how he acted today.”

“What did he do?” Tikki asked.

“Oh, he was just even more flirtatious than he normally is, and sort of crossed some lines, but not really if you think about what we’ve already done.”

“Cat Noir really likes you. He has for a long time.” 

Tikki sounded almost dreamy, but when Marinette answered, her voice was much more sober. “Well, he likes Ladybug.” Marinette paused, running a fingernail over a crack in the stone wall, and then she said a little sadly, “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I thought Adrien liked me for me.” She sighed, “That was stupid. It really is just the whole superhero thing.”

Tikki popped her head out of Marinette's purse, checked that the coast was clear, and then flew out to perch on Marinette’s knee. “What do you mean, Marinette?”

“Come on, Tikki, the reason Adrien likes me is that he knows me as Ladybug. I thought we had some deep, special connection the other night.” She snorted, disgusted and a little embarrassed with her sentimentality, “But that wasn’t it. He just was flirting like he always does.” Marinette thought through that night again, and then dropped her head into one hand, “And I bet he was just going to jump out the window and turn into Cat Noir anyway. I made such a big deal out of it. God, he must have thought I was an idiot. He probably just kissed me to shut me up,” she said miserably.

Marinette was surprised by a diminutive growl coming from Tikki. She looked down to see Tikki’s face scrunched up in frustration. “I *wish* I could have been there, I mean really *been* there, when you were with Adrien!” Tikki exclaimed. “I cannot believe it’s like you’re saying, Marinette! Adrien’s not like that!”

Marinette cried, “How do we know? Adrien, Cat Noir, they act like different people! Who’s the real Adrien? Who’s Cat Noir? Cat Noir makes fun of everything, flirts with everyone, he takes nothing seriously. And Adrien is like… like exactly the opposite. He’s quiet, and just nice, not all in your face, just really nice. And he’s had this really hard life - but then Cat Noir just makes fun of everything. But they’re the *same person*! How can they act so differently, but be the same person?”

“You do the same thing,” Tikki said in a small voice.

“No I don’t.” Marinette was defensive, and Tikki just laughed.

“Marinette, you even talk about how different you are from Ladybug, as if you weren’t the same person. You even say that Adrien doesn't like you, he likes Ladybug.”

Marinette frowned at the truth of Tikki’s words. Then she answered grumpily, “Well, *that* is true. Adrien likes Ladybug, not me.”

“You’re the same person, Marinette!” Tikki was trying hard not to lose patience with Marinette.

Marinette just shrugged. Returning to watching the boats, she finally commented, “Anyway, we’re back to square one. Is Adrien like Adrien, or is he really like Cat Noir?”

Tikki glanced at Marinette, feeling like she had nothing more to say. Finally she asked, “Are you going to see him tonight?”

“No,” Marinette replied, “I don’t want - It’s too confusing.”

Marinette watched the boats for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have left comments and kudos - I am glad you are enjoying it! I like the last scene in this chapter - I can just *feel* Tikki's frustration!  
> Thanks esp. to BFG for your enthusiastic comments! I am happy that I make you laugh. :-)  
> I'll be posting the next chapter soon...!


	4. Chapter 4

When Marinette slipped into her place the next morning, the first thing she noticed was Adrien sitting with a dejected air about him.

“Hey guys,” she said loudly enough to include Adrien and Nino in the greeting.

“‘Sup,” Nino said back, and continued flipping through his phone.

Adrien barely roused himself to reply, “Morning, Marinette.” Then he returned to lackadaisically doodling on the paper in front of him.

“Girl, check this out!” Alya was the only one showing any enthusiasm, as she shoved her phone beneath Marinette’s nose. “I got some awesome footage yesterday for my Ladyblog!”

A video was playing on the screen. Marinette watched as she and Cat Noir leaped towards the akumatized villain, and she could see the distortion in the air as he shot his force beam at them. Alya had caught the moment when Cat Noir had grabbed her close and fell to the ground with her. Marinette watched Cat Noir embracing her, tumbling along the gravel with his arms wrapped protectively around her head and back.

Marinette’s eyes flicked to Adrien’s slumped figure, then back to the screen. There he was with that sexy smile. Marinette remembered that look in his eye. Cat Noir had never before looked at her like that, like he knew something about her that even she didn’t know. She watched her own face in the video become pinched, annoyed, and then she shoved Cat Noir off of her.

The video was still playing, but Marinette sat back in her seat. Her emotions after watching the video were confused and scattered. Her mind kept super-imposing Adrien’s face over Cat Noir’s, and a warmth was seeping into her heart as she thought of Adrien enfolding her, protecting her. But at the same time, Marinette felt all of Cat Noir’s outrageousness, flirtatiousness, and her anger was sparked all over again with his suggestive behavior. Marinette shook her head, confused at her conflicting reactions to the video.

Alya was flipping through her phone again and complaining, “But I missed the fight in the warehouse. I got there too late. Still,” she grinned at Marinette, “I already have over four thousand likes for this video!”

Marinette smiled weakly at Alya. The video captured a moment that was too personal for Marinette to be objective about it.

Steeling herself not to glance at Adrien, Marinette asked, “I know you’re always thinking about Ladybug, but do you ever wonder who Cat Noir is?”

“Well, sure. Loads of people want to know who Cat Noir is. I get asked that on the Ladyblog all the time!” Out of the corner of her eye, Marinette caught Adrien sitting a little straighter in his seat.

“Any theories?” Marinette asked.

“Sure, there are loads. I’ve checked some of them, but…” Alya’s voice dwindled out, and she shrugged.

Marinette thought of Cat Noir’s smug smile and his, ‘I bet you won’t always say that,’ and she bitterly remarked, “Well, I’m sure you have no end of girls to interview as you chase that down.”

Alya glanced at Marinette, her eyebrows furrowed, and asked, “What do you mean?”

“You know, how he’s always flirting,” Marinette said.

Alya returned to editing her Ladyblog, and remarked off-hand, “No he doesn’t.”

“What? Yes, he does. He’s a big flirt.”

“No, he’s not,” Alya contradicted.

“He is literally always flirting, Alya,” Marinette stated, aggrieved.

Finally Alya pulled her gaze from her cell phone and, mimicking Marinette’s sharp tone said, “No, he’s not.” At Marinette’s doubtful look, she said, “The only person he ever flirts with is Ladybug.”

“What!?”

“You can watch the videos yourself, Marinette. He never flirts with anyone except Ladybug. Jeesh,” Alya returned to her phone, “I sometimes wonder if you ever read my Ladyblog.”

Adrien’s voice suddenly sounded, and he said, “I read your Ladyblog.”

Alya shot him a grateful look and said, “Thanks, Adrien.”

“But he flirted with me that one time. When the Evillustrator attacked.”

“Well, I can’t explain that,” Alya said. “I guess you’re in a lucky minority because seriously, of all the videos I’ve ever taken with him, the only person he’s ever flirted with is Ladybug.”

Marinette sat back in her seat with a “Hmph,” feeling even more confused, and trying to quash the little spark of hopefulness that Alya’s words seemed to light. It didn’t help when she saw Adrien shoot a gratified look at Alya before turning back in his seat.

Almost immediately, Mme Bustier arrived to start the lesson, and Marinette could no longer dwell on her tangled emotions.

        ************************

A little over an hour later, when the class was navigating the hallway to science, Adrien still had not perked up. Marinette squeezed between Max and Ivan to walk next to Adrien, when she heard Chloe’s nasal laugh and, “Look how funny that is, Sabrina. Gross walking next to gorgeous!”

Sabrina echoed the nasty laughter, adding, “Homely next to handsome!”

“Appalling next to attractive.”

“Repugnant next to -”

Adrien turned abruptly and with a scorching frown interrupted Sabrina, “Seriously, Chloe? Sabrina? Leave Marinette alone.”

“We’re just having some fun, Adrien. Marinette knows we’re joking, don’t you?” and Chloe laughed mockingly again. She pushed past Marinette, shoving her a little with her shoulder, while Marinette glowered at her.

Sabrina followed in Chloe’s wake, but as she passed Marinette she leaned in and whispered, “...Not!” and then scurried after Chloe.

Marinette watched the two cutting through the crowded hallway, hating the feeling of powerlessness that their bullying engendered. No matter what she did, nothing stopped their verbal abuse. Two years ago she had finally tried befriending them, last year she had tried ignoring them, this year she frequently fought back. But their attacks came without warning, with no obvious trigger, and they sliced into her before she had a chance to shield her emotions.

When Adrien put his hand on her shoulder, Marinette jumped. She was so deep in her thoughts, she had forgotten where she was, why she was there. “Just ignore them, Marinette.”

“Uh, yeah, right.” That was the thing to do, and yet it was almost impossible. ‘Homely next to handsome.’ As they walked on, Marinette stared at her feet.

Adrien’s voice startled her again, “I think Cat Noir flirted with you because you’re nice, and pretty, Marinette.”

“Wha-?” Marinette’s mind took a moment to catch up to Adrien’s words, and then she shut her mouth before sounding like an idiot. What had Adrien just told her, she wondered to herself.

Adrien, Cat Noir… Cat Noir, Adrien… With a snap, Marinette recalled why she had sidled up to Adrien in the first place. “You seemed a little down earlier. Is everything, um, okay?” she asked him.

Adrien shrugged, but as they walked into the science room and slid into their seats, he turned to continue their conversation. “Do you think if a friend said they’d meet you somewhere, and then they didn’t, you’re oversensitive to get mad?”

“Uh, sorry…? You mean, a friend said they’d meet you, but then they didn’t show up?” Adrien nodded. “Well, sure, I’d be mad,” Marinette affirmed.

Suddenly she realized what she’d just said. Last night. Adrien had expected Ladybug, ‘Come back tomorrow, and talk, and kiss.’ She’d blown him off, too confused about his dual-identity to face him. Hurriedly she added, “Er, unless it wasn’t really a *plan* to meet, more like an *idea*, or a *suggestion*...” Adrien frowned. Marinette could tell that he doubted himself, doubted his reaction to her absence. “Maybe your friend had a really good reason for not showing up,” she suggested.

“Yeah, I guess,” Adrien replied, then swiveled back in his seat to wait for the lesson to begin.

Marinette stared at his back. He… he cared. He was upset that she hadn’t shown up. Marinette’s own lack of self-confidence tried to undermine what Adrien’s reaction hinted at, but the thought would not leave her mind: was it possible she was more than a passing fancy for Adrien?

Suddenly, the urge to kiss him, to be kissed by him, was overwhelming. Her cheeks turned scarlet, thinking about it in front of her classmates, even though she knew they couldn’t see her thoughts. At a nudge and wink from Alya, Marinette amended that: almost none of them could see her thoughts.

Adrien did not stay for lunch, and had fencing class directly after school. By the time Marinette was doing her homework, she was spending just as much time watching the clock and thinking of Adrien, as she was on her Geometry proofs.

By 10:30 at night, she had kissed her parents good night, plumped her pillows beneath her blanket to look like a sleeping body, and now she was standing in the middle of her room.

“Tikki,” she smiled, unable to hide her eagerness, “Spots On!” As Tikki was pulled into her earrings, Marinette felt the dizzying, weightless swirl of her transformation. Marinette flung her arms out, feeling her red suit hug her body, and she drew her hands across her eyes, magically setting her mask into place.

Within minutes she had climbed out onto her roof balcony, and was swooping through the streets of late night Paris.

It was not yet 11:00pm when Ladybug arrived at Adrien’s house. From the building across the street, she could see Adrien stretched out on his sofa, reading a thick book. Ladybug watched him blow a wisp of his bangs out of his eyes, and suddenly she lost all of her confusion, doubtfulness, and anger; love, admiration, and attraction welled up in their place.

“He’s Cat Noir,” she whispered to herself. Did Cat Noir really care for her, for Ladybug, really as a person, not just as some girl available to flirt with? She finally could ponder the question with a sense of possibility instead of denial.

Biting her lip, Ladybug threw out her yoyo, and swung up to the window. Hanging in the darkness, she lightly rapped.

Adrien was rereading his favorite book, an old western by an American author, when he heard a tap at his window. The excitement that blossomed inside of him had him tossing the book down and jumping to his feet.

She was there! He could see Ladybug’s masked face peeking at him through the night’s shadows, and for the moment he forgot all about his lingering anger towards her. It took Adrien only a second to unlatch his window and hold it open.

Ladybug paused outside, and carefully asked, “May I come in?”

“Of course!” Adrien replied.

Leaping gracefully in, Ladybug turned to Adrien and immediately apologized, “I’m sorry I didn’t come last night. Something sort of came up, and I had to stay home.”

Her apology was vague enough that Adrien paused for a moment. But he realized that, as Ladybug, she couldn’t exactly tell him what had happened in her non-superhero life, and so graciously he accepted her apology. “It’s okay, I understand.”

“But I’m here now!” she said cheerfully. Tentatively, Ladybug held out her hand to him.

Adrien grinned at her, and grasped her hand. He pulled her over to the sofa, “You’re here now,” he agreed, and the harmony between the two of them was reestablished.

“Were you reading?” Ladybug asked.

“Yeah.”

Ladybug flipped over the book and looked at the cover. “A western?” she questioned, surprised.

“Yeah,” Adrien’s cheeks turned a little rosy, like he’d been caught out in something. “I like how it’s all good versus evil, and how the good always wins.”

Ladybug giggled and remarked, “I like when the good wins too!”

Adrien chuckled and replied, “Yet another thing we have in common.”

“How was your day?” Ladybug asked. She had watched him all day, and wondered how his answer would differ from her perception.

Adrien shrugged. “It was okay. I did a photoshoot at lunchtime, and they had these little sushi rolls that were so spicy, they made my eyes water, and the photographer spent all of his time yelling at me and the caterers.” He chuckled.

“I only like tuna rolls,” Ladybug offered.

Adrien licked his lips and said, “Mmm, spicy crunchy tuna rolls! I love those!”

“I like vegetable tempura.”

Adrien peered at her, “You like Japanese food, huh?”

Thinking of her mother’s cooking, Ladybug said, “I like all Asian food really. But sometimes my mom makes real Chinese food, and some of her dishes are a little gross. Like, she’ll make scrambled eggs with these little fish in it, and you see all these tiny eyes staring at you as you eat it.”

Adrien laughed, “Okay, that doesn’t sound particularly appetizing!” He smiled at her, while wondering why her mom cooked real Chinese cuisine.

“So, uh, school was okay?” Ladybug pressed after a moment of quiet.

“Yeah.” Adrien considered telling Ladybug how disappointed he’d been that she hadn’t come the night before, but he thought it might come off as too heavy, plus he’d already told her it was okay. Probably he shouldn’t reopen that topic.

Ladybug knew he’d had fencing after school but she pretended not to as she asked, “And I guess you still have to come directly home after school?”

Adrien looked at her sharply, “Actually, I had fencing. But how’d you know that I'm supposed to come directly home after school?”

“Uh…” She had screwed up. Too late, Ladybug remembered that Adrien had discussed his strict dad with Marinette, not with Ladybug. She tried to laugh lightly, but it sounded a little forced for her liking. Scrambling for a credible answer, Ladybug tried, “Well, I just figured… I mean, isn’t your dad pretty strict and all?”

“Yeah… But how did you know that?” Adrien watched her suspiciously.

Ladybug gulped, and cast her mind over any memories that she could use to cover her flub. “Well, I remember how he wouldn’t let you have a birthday party and your friend Nino turned into The Bubbler. And, um, how he sent you to your room that time Simon Says struck…?”

“Right…”

“And, he was annoyed that you ate lunch at school!” Ladybug finished triumphantly.

Adrien narrowed his gaze at her. Nervously, Ladybug licked her lips and asked, “So, um, isn’t he strict?”

“Yeah… yeah, he is.”

Adrien said nothing more. The silence was too awkward, and Ladybug said, “Well, um, so…?”

Staring hard at her, Adrien said, “It really *is* more than just the model thing. You *do* know me.”

Ladybug’s eyes slid away, as a kaleidoscope of memories swept through her mind: Adrien handing her his umbrella; getting out of his car with her scarf around his neck, so happy that his dad had given it to him; pulling her close for a kiss in their student film contest; wishing her luck on his father’s hat contest… And then, more images flooded her mind: as Cat Noir placing himself between her and Timebreaker, and Dark Cupid; cracking both bad and clever puns as they fought villains side by side; allowing her to throw, swing, and toss him like a weapon, showing complete trust in her. With a quick, indrawn breath, Ladybug realized that she was not just in love with Adrien… She had come to love, and completely trust, Cat Noir. Despite her impression of him as some Casanova Cat, she realized that in the all important things, she trusted him. Loved him. It was not a kissing type of love… It was the abiding love of deep friendship. Except that now…. Ladybug looked into Adrien’s eyes, and blushed.

Adrien watched Ladybug’s bluebell eyes turn unfocused. Her thoughts were a million miles away, and then she gasped a little. When she turned her gaze back to him, her cheeks turned pink. He could not read her expression, but it was serious, and sweet.

Finally Ladybug replied to his statement, simply saying, “I wish that I knew you better.”

Adrien’s hand found hers. He said, “Okay, ask me one serious question, and I’ll answer it.”

He could not have guessed the direction that Ladybug’s mind took. She could have asked, ‘Are you Cat Noir?’ She could have forced the confession… but something stopped her. This he could always tell her, and they had agreed not to. It wasn’t right to corner him like that. Plus, Adrien and Cat Noir liked Ladybug, like she had said to Tikki; as Marinette, she acted differently. And Adrien had never shown enough interest in her as Marinette to encourage her. But if she forced his confession, she really had to confess her own double-identity… and this she wasn’t ready for.

She could ask about his mother. Ask what really happened… It was all shrouded in mystery. But this would not necessarily give her better knowledge of Adrien… Nor would asking about his father.

“I certainly hope you’re not coming up with a really hard physics question for me!” Adrien joked, the silence too much for him.

Ladybug flashed him a quick smile, then asked, “Overall, do you think you’re more happy, or sad?”

Adrien squeezed her hand while joking, “Well, that’s even harder than a physics question!” He sat silently for a while, thinking. Finally he answered, “When I’m at school, I’m more happy. When I’m home… there are too many things that remind me to be sad.” Adrien thought of that first night, when Ladybug thought she was stopping him from suicide, when really he was just trying to escape. School, Cat Noir… they were escapes, from an oppressive home that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not change. Adrien sighed.

“I’m glad you go to school,” Ladybug said, thinking of herself as well as him.

“Me too,” he replied. Then he added, “That first night - really, I was just climbing out the window. To escape. Sometimes I just leave the house, just to get out.”

Ladybug nodded her head. She believed him, mostly. Thinking back on that night, Ladybug imagined that he would have called for his kwami had she not shown up… But his timing, it was too close. Too reckless. Ladybug’s gaze played over Adrien’s face. She shifted on the sofa, cuddling closer to him, and putting her head on his shoulder said, “Please don’t take risks with yourself, Adrien. It would be terrible if -” She couldn’t finish her sentence, and instead, audibly swallowed.

Ladybug heard Adrien chuckle a little, as if he knew something she didn’t, but he pulled her closer and replied, “Don’t worry.”

Which was not the same as a promise, but Ladybug let it go.

Ladybug could feel Adrien turn and kiss the top of her head. He stretched his arm out, curving it around her shoulders, and played with one of her pigtails. She giggled and looked up at him. They shared a smile, then Ladybug said, “We said that I should come back, that we could talk, and,” her cheeks grew rosy again, “and kiss.”

Adrien’s eyes darkened, and he stared at her intently. Then a small smile broke through the intensity, and he quipped, “There’s no chaperone in the room.”

Ladybug smiled in turn, “We could go find Nathalie?”

“Let’s not,” Adrien whispered, leaning closer to Ladybug.

With his lips hovering over hers, Ladybug whispered her agreement, “Let’s not.”

And then the two were kissing. Ladybug wondered at how perfectly they fit, how perfectly in tune they always seemed to be. Adrien had threaded one hand into her silky hair and was cupping her cheek with his other hand, while kissing her deeply. Ladybug had one hand on his shoulder, and one arm wrapped around his waist. She couldn’t help but sigh as he moved to kiss her jawline, working his way to her ear. Adrien sucked on the tip of her earlobe, and Ladybug giggled, batting him away.

“That feels funny.”

“I thought it was supposed to be nice,” Adrien admitted.

Ladybug leaned over and licked his earlobe, then pulled it into her mouth as he had done to her. Adrien chuckled, pulling away, and said, “Yeah, that’s weird. Well, it’s kinda nice…”

A devilish smile crossed Ladybug’s face, and she shifted on the couch to kneel beside him, then leaned forward and pulled his earlobe into her mouth again. Adrien laughed, but didn’t pull away, until Ladybug nipped gently on his ear.

Adrien’s heart was pounding, and he fell sideways on the sofa, pulling Ladybug by her waist down on top of him. Holding her close, he kissed her with the passion surging through him. Ladybug’s fingers dove into his hair, as she met his passion with her own. Finally, as Adrien’s hands began to skim along her body encased in her red suit, Ladybug broke off the kiss.

They stared at each other, breathing heavily, then Adrien pushed Ladybug’s head down onto his shoulder and hugged her close. “I missed you. I wanted you here so badly,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Ladybug said into his shoulder. She closed her eyes, and as Adrien held her close, imagined him as Cat Noir. Ladybug smiled to herself, the knowledge blossoming inside of her... she would feel the same. The same tenderness, the same desire to kiss him again, the same love.

She pulled back, leaning over Adrien to share her smile of joy. Adrien reached up and gently ran one finger along the edge of her mask. “I want to know who you really are,” his voice was husky.

“What if I’m different from what you expect?” she asked.

“I… It would be okay.” Adrien considered confessing to her. He could say, ‘I’m different when I’m Cat Noir.’ But Ladybug had never shown any real interest in him as Cat Noir. Sometimes she flirted back, but the few times he’d tried to push it, she had discouraged him. The deceit between them bothered Adrien, and he wanted to end it… but not yet. Maybe, he thought, if he could get Ladybug to fall in love with him as Adrien, then when he told her he was Cat Noir she would be willing to give him a chance.

“Never mind,” Adrien said. “Maybe sometime later, you can tell me, but for right now, let’s just keep it like this.”

Ladybug felt a peculiar mixture of relief and disappointment. “Okay,” she agreed, letting him take the lead on this.

Adrien’s eyes darkened again, and his voice was almost somber when he said, “I want to kiss you again, but I think it might be wiser if you left.”

Ladybug frowned at him.

“It’s late anyway, and I guess you might also have school tomorrow like me?”

Ladybug nodded her head, then partially ignored his words and laid her head back down on Adrien’s shoulder.

They stayed like that for many minutes, not talking, not kissing, just laying with each other, being with each other. A deep contentment saturated Adrien, and he felt he never wanted to let Ladybug go. After a while, Adrien’s hands began to float delicately along her body, barely touching her curves, tickling her. When his hands skimmed along her side, and she could feel them along the curve of her breasts, her breath caught in her throat. She said, “Yeah, it’s time for me to go.”

Immediately Adrien dropped his hands onto the sofa, and he replied in a quiet voice, “Right.”

Ladybug rolled off of him, to stand beside the couch. Adrien rose, and taking her hand, he walked with her to his window. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her around to face him, “I don’t want you to go. I just want you to stay, and stay, and stay. I’m happy when I’m with you, Ladybug.”

“That’s how I feel,” she replied. She hugged him close around his waist. Sometime, in the future, she would be able to tell him how much she loved him, how important he was to her… For now, she simply hugged him as tightly as she could.

“Oooph!” Adrien said, then laughed a little, “Your bear hugs are a little too strong!”

“Oh, right, sorry!” Ladybug laughed. Adrien dropped a kiss on her nose, and Ladybug quickly reached up and pecked him on the lips. “Okay, I’d better go.”

“Yeah.” Adrien kept his arms around her, and she kept hers around him. Finally, he sighed, repeated, “Yeah,” and forced himself to let her go. Ladybug slowly pulled her arms from around him. “Will you come tomorrow?” he asked.

“And talk, and kiss?” Ladybug gently teased. Adrien smiled at her. “Uh huh!” she agreed with a glowing smile. Then, she hopped up into the window. Turning, she smiled cockily and said, “Bug out!” and she was gone. Adrien rested his chin on the window frame and smiled at her back as she disappeared into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, thanks for reading thus far! There are two more chapters to go...! So, I want to thank you guys for leaving comments; I have the story already completely written, and I *do* like it, but I sorta wish... well, I want to write another story, and this time wait for chapter comments before starting in on the next chapter, because I like the insight you all show. It makes me think about things differently. I might have had Adrien *think* different things in this chapter, based upon some things that I read in the comments from Chapter 3, but this story is already completed. 
> 
> I have two more different "Reveal" stories (already posted on Tumblr, under simplejjs), and I intend to post them here on AO3 as well, but then I want to write a story like I am describing above, where you guys can comment and I will incorporate your thoughts and insights. I think that would make a stronger story.
> 
> Although I do want to say that, my notion of Adrien's father, and the house he is living in, appears to be much harsher than some of my commenters' notions. I think it is because I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional house, and so I key in to the mangled emotions that Adrien's father is enmeshed in, and that are twisting his paternal love into something unhealthy. I do NOT cut him the slack that some of you do! :-)
> 
> BFG - thanks for the in-depth comments and insights!
> 
> clarisa - I liked your peanut story! You nailed it! Isn't it funny how, when our true selves contradict the opinions others have of us, they get angry? Haha, humans are funny creatures!
> 
> o - Wow! I read your comment, that someone "recommended" my story to you, and I cannot tell you how high it made me! I thought, "seriously? people are actually *talking* about my story?" It gives me warm fuzzies :-)
> 
> Next Chapter Coming Soon...!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Guys - here's the penultimate chapter to my story, and honestly, it is my favorite! :-) I hope you like it too!

It was harder than ever the next day for Marinette to treat Adrien with distance. The fact that she was exhausted after staying up late and not having slept well for the last four nights made self-discipline almost impossible. She found herself responding to his jokes like they were old chums. She touched him unconsciously, on his hand, his wrist, his arm. Changing classes, she naturally moved to walk next to him, as if it was where she belonged. When they got to the science classroom, Adrien gave her a peculiar look, and patted her arm as he shifted away from her. Marinette realized what she had done, how familiarly she had acted, and was horrified with herself. She almost apologized, but then she realized that would just make it worse. So instead, Marinette slid into her seat and glued her eyes onto her tablet, carefully avoiding the casual conversation between Alya, Nino, and Adrien.

A folded note landed on her desk from her right. Reaching for it, Marinette steeled herself for insults. It was a drawing of two stick figures. A boy, standing, with wavy hair, and a girl, on her hands and knees, staring up at the boy, her tongue lolling out like a dog’s, with two black pigtails. The boy stick figure was patting the head of the girl-dog, and his thought-bubble read, “I’d better call the dog catcher so this stray will leave me alone.”

Marinette growled inaudibly. Taking out her pencil, she added to the picture. A stick figure, in Chloe’s jacket and striped shirt, with Chloe’s ponytail, running towards the twosome, saying, “I’m the dog catcher. I catch ALL the dogs.” For good measure, Marinette added three boy-dogs, as hideous as she could make a stick figure, chasing after Chloe with gaping smiles on their faces.

Folding it back up, Marinette cleverly waited for the moment just before Mme Mendeleiev was to start the lesson. At that point she flipped the note back to its original author. Chloe shot her a dirty look. She got out her lab book and tablet as the teacher had directed, then Marinette saw her open the note. Chloe’s face turned red, and she crumpled the note in her hand. Sabrina tried to get it, to see what Marinette had drawn, but Chloe kept it away from her and dropped the note into her purse.

At least, Marinette acknowledged to herself, Chloe did a good job of keeping Marinette’s mind off of Adrien. But Marinette listened to the lesson with a frown on her face; as good as it felt to stand up for herself, resorting to meanness hardly made her feel better. It didn’t sit well with her. Marinette wondered how Chloe could maintain her unrelenting mean streak, knowing how being mean only made herself feel somehow unclean.

Between Chloe’s note, embarrassment over her behavior with Adrien, and sleepiness, Marinette had an impossible time concentrating on her teacher’s grating voice. So it was with dread when she heard the announcement, “Class, I remind you that there will be a test this Monday. And I’m not going to grade easy, like last time.” The entire class groaned - last time, she had not graded easy. Marinette folded her arms on the desk and laid her head down; she had already given up.

Adrien’s day was quite the opposite of Marinette’s. His happiness and contentment from the night before buoyed him throughout the day, and even Mme Mendeleiev’s announcement could not depress his spirits. Only one thing bothered him, and that was Marinette’s unusual behavior. She was acting… almost… proprietary. Too casual. Like, she imagined them as boyfriend and girlfriend. As Adrien packed up his tablet and textbooks, he frowned. In the past week, he had been more open, more friendly with Marinette; did she think that he was sending her signals? This had happened a few times before, with other girls that he’d interacted with during photoshoots. The combination of his good looks and his family's wealth seemed to act as a magnet for some people, although Adrien had thought that Marinette was deeper than this.

He sighed, thinking of Ladybug. Glancing at Marinette, Adrien acknowledged that it was true… if Ladybug had never come into his life, he probably would have considered Marinette to be exactly the sort of girl he’d want to date. And if he was honest with himself, he knew that even now he was a little attracted to her. She was kind, intelligent, pretty, and fun. She had a spark about her that he really liked. Plus she laughed at all of his jokes, even the lame ones. But, his heart belonged to Ladybug, and to the girl behind the mask. Adrien knew from past experience that it would be better if he said something now to Marinette, than to let the situation linger. But he groaned to himself. This conversation was not going to be fun.

“Lunch again, right guys?” Nino’s question interrupted Adrien’s train of thought.

“Sorry, I can’t today,” Adrien said. His father was eating lunch at home, and so would he. “But I’ll walk down with you guys. Alya, Marinette,” he turned to them, “you guys are having lunch with Nino, right?”

“Uh huh,” Alya chirped.

Marinette kept her head down, but nodded. Now Adrien felt like she was avoiding looking at him. He tried not to roll his eyes - girls were so confusing.

Nevertheless, as the three headed off to the locker room, Adrien fell in beside Marinette. She still kept her eyes trained on the ground, seeming fascinated with the floor tiles. Adrien cleared his throat, then began, “So, uh, Marinette, remember how I told you that friend didn’t show up?”

Marinette flicked a glance at him, and muttered, “Uh huh.”

“Well, *she*,” he emphasized the pronoun, “did, last night, and everything is good now. Actually,” he stretched the truth a little, knowing that he and Ladybug had no such agreement, “we are boyfriend and girlfriend now. I’m really happy,” he added pointedly. Adrien thought to himself, there, that should take care of it.

He watched Marinette’s cheeks turn pink, and at first he thought she must be embarrassed, but once again her behavior threw him when she looked up at him, and with a warm, almost affectionate smile, said, “Really? That’s nice.” She chuckled softly and added in a strange tone that Adrien couldn’t identify, “I’m sure the girl is very glad to hear that.”

“Huh?” Adrien asked, completely confused by her reaction.

Marinette knew that if she did not exit this conversation immediately, she was going to make a cake of herself. As it was she had to bite her tongue not to flirt with Adrien. So, grabbing his hand and giving it a quick squeeze, Marinette said, “Have a good lunch!” Then she hurried off to her locker, leaving Adrien to stare after her, bemused.

*****************************

After school let out, Alya walked with Marinette back to her parents’ bakery, chatting the whole way about nothing consequential. Sabine Cheng was at the cash register, and Marinette slid behind the counter, kissed her cheek, then grabbed two pastries for Alya and her to share. Then the girls went back outside into the sunshine.

“So, Marinette,” Alya started, flaky crumbs dropping onto her shirt front, “are you okay? You’ve been acting funny all week. Like, I can’t believe how flirty you were with Adrien today, and you didn’t even stutter once! But you’re, like, in your own world or something, girl.”

Marinette darted a smile at Alya, but then stared at the pastry in her hand, like she was studying it. There was nothing she could say. There was literally not one single thing about this last amazing week that she could explain to Alya. Not the kisses, not that frightening first day, not the intimate conversations. Nothing. Marinette bit the inside of her cheek, and tried to think of a bone she could toss to Alya.

“So I really liked going to lunch with Adrien this last week,” she said.

“Me too,” Alya agreed.

“Being around you, and Nino, *and* him, I guess it feels like the pressure is off, so then I don’t stutter as much.”

Alya looked almost horrified, “You mean, you don’t like him anymore?!”

“No, no! I do!” Marinette giggled. Images of kissing Adrien, of laying on top of him on his sofa, danced in her mind, and Marinette blushed. She tried again, “It’s like, trying to talk to him like a person rather than flirt with him… it’s made it easier overall. Plus, a couple of times he’s stood up for me against Chloe, and… I don’t know… like I think maybe he might kind of like me, so then actually I’ve felt a little better around him.” There, Marinette thought, that’s the best I can do. She knew that the logic was garbled, and she doubted her explanation was particularly credible, but it was the best she could come up with to explain her behavior to her best friend.

Alya did still look doubtful, and she opened her mouth as if to ask a question, but then closed it. She popped the last of her pastry into her mouth, and after a moment said, “So what now? Do you want me to ask them to go with us to the movies this weekend? Or we could get them to bring us out for ice cream, ‘cause Adrien said they would?”

“Umm, I don’t think his dad would let him.” Marinette thought about how she had acted around Adrien that day; it might actually be uncomfortable to spend time around Adrien not as Ladybug. She might trip up. Still, she thought, if Adrien spent more time around her as Marinette, maybe when she finally told him who she really was, he wouldn’t be so… so disappointed. Marinette sighed. She glanced at Alya out of the corner of her eye, wishing she could explain to her best friend her dilemma. But, there were too many good reasons not to disclose her secret identity to anyone. If she told Cat Noir, it would be different. But telling Alya? Marinette sighed again. She just couldn’t justify it, as tempted as she might be.

“I don't know. Maybe. I don’t think he can.”

“Well, girl, we won’t know unless we ask! And then you can,” Alya made air quotes, “‘get to know him better.’” She winked broadly, and Marinette smiled.

The two sat companionably, people watching, then Marinette suddenly started, “Oh! I promised my parents that I would help in the bakery tomorrow. My dad is going to watch the marathon at the Bois de Boulogne. Can we try to do something in the evening?”

“Sure,” Alya replied.

Marinette pursed her lips, and swore, “Darn! That means I have to study science tonight. I am *so* behind!”

“Me too! This test is gonna be killer.” The two chatted for a while over their science test on Monday, until the sun became low on the horizon. “I’d better go. I’m babysitting tonight.”

“Have fun with that!” Marinette teased. “I’ll think of you while I’m studying.”

“I’ll text you as soon as I hear anything back from Nino.”

Marinette gathered up their crumpled napkins and nodded her head, “Okay. Hopefully see you tomorrow.”

“Ciao, girl!” Alya waved, and disappeared down the street.

Marinette stood for a while watching the Parisian streets grow dim in the falling dusk. She felt the exhaustion settling in her bones. She still had studying to do, dinner to eat, probably more studying, and then she’d show up at least briefly at Adrien’s - she had said she would, and knew it was important for her to keep her promise. As the sun set, Marinette felt like her energy was setting with it. Instead of studying, she wished she could take a nap. Sighing, she turned back to the bakery.

“Hey, Mom,” she greeted her mother with a kiss.

“Oh, Dear,” Sabine seemed somewhat frazzled, “could you please prepare the vegetables for dinner tonight? I need to order some items for tomorrow, and I have to do it now.”

Great, thought Marinette, studying would have to wait. “Sure!” she said agreeably, wishing she could have said no. Then she dragged her heavy book bag up the stairs before she went to work.

**********************

It was the multiple ambulance sirens blaring through the streets that warned Marinette of an akuma attack. Hunkered over her science notes, the disharmony of the sirens caused her to cock her head to listen.

“Marinette! It sounds like an akuma attack!” Tikki flitted over from the chaise lounge. Jumping from her seat, Marinette stood in the middle of her room and called, “Tikki, Spots On!” She felt lifted into the air, spinning as the red suit encased her body. Within seconds she was standing again on firm ground, lithe and limber with strength coursing through her body. Ladybug dashed across the room and up the ladder to the roof garden, then threw her yoyo out to swing through city streets following the sounds of sirens. She arrived at a neighborhood street where multiple people sat on the curb in the pools of light cast by street lamps. They were holding their faces or leaning into the shoulders of helpers. She watched a young woman hand a handkerchief to an older lady, who was sitting and holding her eyes. The older lady then turned blank eyes to the younger and said, “Gratitude you will never receive. Hateful girl, you can only peeve.” Then the older lady clapped both hands over her mouth, as if horrified by what she had said.

A little boy was crying to his mother, and through his tears saying, “You are ugly, you are mean, the meanest mommy I’ve ever seen!” Then he turned his face into her shoulder and sobbed harder.

In the distance, Ladybug heard a scream. She raced down the street towards the sound, and finally found the akumatized villain. He was shooting black ink from a fancy fountain pen right into the faces of a husband and wife out walking their dog. The villain was dressed like a stylized nineteenth century poet, with dark, form fitting trousers and a tight black jacket, large ebony buttons down the front. A snow white linen shirt with an over-large, pointed collar and flowing cuffs erupted from under the jacket. He wore high-heeled boots, and wielded his fountain pen like a magic wand.

“Away from me, you nasty cur!” the husband was saying, while clinging desperately to his wife.

“I curse you now and forevermore!” she snarled back, while tightly holding onto her husband. The eyes of both the husband and wife were pale, blank just like the elderly woman’s, and like blind people, they looked towards each other, rather than at each other.

Ladybug’s expression was stern. This villain, whatever his problem was, had to be stopped.

Just then, Cat Noir’s cheerful voice sounded up ahead, drawing both Ladybug’s and the villain’s attention. “Hey, Mr. Sunshine, why don’t you retire your pen and take up meditation instead?”

The villain’s face became pinched, “And why don’t you acknowledge greatness when you see it?” Viciously he aimed a shot of ink from his pen directly at Cat Noir’s face.

Cat Noir leapt out of the way, somersaulting in the air and then back-flipping across shots of ink until he was beside Ladybug, protectively twirling her yoyo. He grinned his cheshire smile and said, “Hello, MiLady.”

Ladybug smiled back, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Then their attention was diverted. A young boy had darted from behind a parked car toward a lit storefront, but the villain turned and shot ink directly at his face, laughing evilly. The boy grabbed his eyes like they hurt and cried, “I cannot see, I cannot see; I hate the world, the world hates me!” He stumbled awkwardly, running into cars and tripping over the curb, until a butcher in a stained apron dashed out of his darkened doorway, grabbed the boy by the waist, and carried him to safety.

“I’m pretty sure that verse you’re spreading around would not count as great,” Cat Noir taunted.

The fiend rose to his full height and declared, “I am Wordsmith, and no one, no one will ever reject me! Give me your Miraculouses, or get ready to be blinded by my glory!”

“Sorry, did you say glory, or gory, because your threats are bloody ridiculous.”

As Wordsmith screeched in rage, Ladybug rolled her eyes and said, “Seriously, Cat? That’s the best you can do?”

He grinned, then bowed his head as if in apology. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Ladybug, he started twirling his baton as a shield and called, “Word*smith*? More like, Word*schtick*!” He glanced at Ladybug, raising his eyebrows. Beginning to laugh, Ladybug shook her head, No.

However, the provoked villain started stalking them, frantically shooting darts of ink at their yoyo and baton. Ladybug and Cat Noir walked backwards, keeping a distance between the villain Wordsmith and themselves. “Okay, how’s this?” Cat Noir asked. He raised his voice and called, “The only thing blinding around here, Wordsmith, is your complete lack of talent!”

Ladybug barely had time to call out, “That’s the one, Chaton!” when Wordsmith leaped the twenty paces separating them, enraged beyond all measure. Ladybug and Cat Noir separated, swinging and vaulting away to either side of him.

“Over here!” they both called, in unison, confusing the fiend with multiple targets. He roared, firing his ink and hitting a group of teenage boys who had gathered under a streetlamp to watch the fight. They grabbed at their faces, then started yelling at each other, “Get out of my face, you f---- disgrace!” and “You’re so stupid, you’re so dumb, put up your fists, I’ll give you some!”

Ladybug and Cat Noir reconverged behind Wordsmith, again using their yoyo and baton as shields. Ladybug was grinning at Cat Noir, and when he glanced at her, she actually giggled. Cat Noir stared, surprised by her behavior. “You okay, Bugaboo?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, trying to sober up. It was fun, so fun, to fight alongside Cat Noir. Now, looking at him, knowing him as Adrien, knowing she had kissed those silly lips, it all gave a completely different feel to their partnership.

“This guy’s crazy. Let’s wrap this up,” Cat Noir prompted.

“Right,” Ladybug agreed. She turned back to Wordsmith and called out, “Look, whatever happened to you, harming little kids won’t make it better. Why don’t you just put down your pen and we’ll talk about it?”

“Put down my pen?” Wordsmith yelled, shooting another burst of ink at them. It splattered off of Ladybug’s spinning yoyo. “I will never put down my pen. Why don’t you give me your Miraculouses, unless you want to see more innocent citizens hurt?” He spun and shot a stream of ink at a person crouched beside a car. The girl jumped up, wiping black ink from her glasses.

“Alya!” Ladybug exclaimed.

Alya’s face beamed, and waving one arm in greeting, she called out, “Get him, Ladybug!”

The villain shot at her again, and with Alya’s face turned to Ladybug, this time some of the ink flew behind Alya’s glasses. Immediately she dropped her phone to clutch at her face. Tearing her glasses off, she wiped uselessly at her eyes. They she turned a blank stare in the direction of Ladybug and cried, “This blindness, Ladybug, is all due to you. You’re incompetent and you know it’s true!”

“Oh, Alya,” Ladybug whispered, feeling guilty.

“Come on, LB, let’s stop this guy now,” Cat Noir said firmly.

Ladybug shot out her yoyo, trying to snatch the pen from the villain’s hand, but it was met with a blast of ink. Again and again she tried, while Cat Noir approached him from the side. However, both were rebuffed, until finally Ladybug tossed her yoyo into the air and called, “Lucky Charm!” A burst of pink and red ladybug lights swirled through the air, and out of the sky dropped a little personal fan, battery powered, into Ladybug’s hands. “Huh?” she said. Why couldn’t her lucky charms ever be obvious, she thought.

Wordsmith had turned and started to run down the street, shooting ink indiscriminately and leaving a trail of blind Parisians spouting mean-spirited rhyme in his wake. Each time Ladybug or Cat Noir got close to him, Wordsmith would simply dart down a new street and race away.

“We’ve got to trap him!” Ladybug called to Cat Noir. The villain had just entered a dark, narrow alleyway, and Cat Noir could see a patch of green at the other end, a city park lit by street lamps where the alley let out. Vaulting over Wordsmith and down the alley, Cat Noir arrived at the small neighborhood park he had glimpsed. A statue of some long dead Parisian stood near the alley’s entrance. “Cataclysm!” Cat Noir yelled, and he felt power surge through his arm.

Just as Wordsmith was approaching the end of the alley, Cat Noir shoved his hand against the base of the statue. It crumbled, falling with a dusty crash into a large pile at the mouth of the alleyway. Cat Noir could hear the villain’s frustrated scream from behind the wall of rubble. Using his baton, Cat Noir valuted to the top of the rock pile.

Ladybug stood halfway down the alleyway, and Wordsmith was at Cat Noir’s feet, his back to the rock pile and facing Ladybug. His chest was heaving, and anger twisted his mouth into a cruel grimace. “No!” he yelled, shooting ink relentlessly at Ladybug as she slowly closed in on him. Her spinning yoyo splattered each blast.

When she was only ten feet from the villain, and he was shooting an almost continuous stream of ink in his panic, Ladybug suddenly pulled her yoyo back and instead held up the Lucky Charm. The little fan whirred in a high pitched whine, and when the ink hit its wall of wind, the stream scattered and flew back the way it had come. Black ink splashed across Wordsmith’s face. As he screamed and swiped at his face, Ladybug’s yoyo shot out and she captured the villain’s pen. Snapping it in two, she cried, “No more evil-doing for you, little akuma!” A black butterfly wiggled out of the pen, and tried to fly away, but Ladybug called, “Time to de-evilize!” She twirled her yoyo in a circle, and it snapped closed around the black butterfly.

Pulling the yoyo back to her, Ladybug delicately drew one finger along its surface. The yoyo opened up and inside sat an innocent, white butterfly. It took off, flying out of the dusty dim alley, into the night, a smudge of glowing white against the midnight sky. Ladybug smiled, “Bye bye, little butterfly.” Reaching down to grab the fan, she tossed it high into the air and shouted exuberantly, “Miraculous Ladybug!” Immediately a burst of red and pink lights lit up the night, and swept throughout Paris, returning the people and the streets to rights.

Cat Noir leaped off of the pile of rubble just as it was restored to its original statue form, and Wordsmith, crouched at his feet, was enveloped in purple smoke. When the smoke cleared, a middle aged man was left in its place, wearing jeans and an old-fashioned smoking jacket with faded brown patches on its elbows. He sat back on his heels, buried his face in his hands, and started to cry. Cat Noir crouched down next to him and placed an arm around the man’s shoulders. “What have I done?” the man cried tearfully into his hands.

“Hey, it’s okay. Everything is alright now,” Cat Noir reassured the man.

“Did I - did I hurt people?” Cat Noir’s expression told the truth, and the man gasped as if in pain. He looked ashamed at Cat Noir.

“But we made it all better,” Cat Noir replied.

Ladybug squatted down in front of the man, “Yeah, it’s all okay now.”

The poor man continued to cry. “All I ever wanted was to bring beauty into the world, and now look what I’ve done.”

“Are you a poet?” Ladybug guessed.

The man looked at her miserably, and nodded. Then he said, “But no one likes my poetry. Editors are rejecting me all the time.”

“No one?” asked Cat Noir gently.

“Well, no one that matters,” replied the man.

“Who ‘matters’?” pressed Cat Noir.

“The editors,” replied the man, eyes downcast.

Cat Noir smiled kindly. “The editors are only important if you want to make money from your poetry. Take it from me, money is not all it’s cracked up to be. Beauty is more important.” The man sniffled back his tears, and scrubbed his face. Cat Noir added, “Keep writing your poetry for the beauty, and you will make the world a more beautiful place.” He glanced from the man to Ladybug, who was staring at him. Her face looked… Cat Noir blushed.

Ladybug listened to Cat Noir’s words, and knowing Adrien, she knew the import of what he was saying. Her mouth fell open a little, in awe of how perfect he was. Strong and sincere, courageous and kind, intelligent and wise… admiration and tears glowed from her eyes, and when Cat Noir glanced up at her, and saw her expression, he blushed.

The poet broke their spell by rubbing his face again and then saying, “Thank you, Cat Noir. Thank you, Ladybug.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll never forget you.” Then, he tottered out of the alleyway into the city beyond.

Ladybug was still staring at Cat Noir. A spot on her earrings was blinking, and a paw pad on his ring was beginning to fade. Ladybug’s expression was making Cat Noir uncomfortable. He rubbed the back of his neck and said self-consciously, “What?”

“That - what you said. That was really…” Ladybug searched for a word that would not sound overdone. Amazing? Beautiful? Deep? Blinking, she finally said, “Nice.” She was still staring at him like he was the sun, the moon, and the stars in one amazing package.

The intensity of Ladybug’s stare, the expression on her face, her whole behavior… it was everything that Cat Noir had ever hoped for, yet it felt so sudden, so complete, he did not know what to do with it. And how could she look at him like that anyway, when she was currently kissing Adrien? Cat Noir shook his head, confusing himself with his spinning thoughts. Another spot, and another paw pad, faded. “Um, we have to go,” Cat Noir said.

Ladybug shrugged and replied, “I know,” but then she ignored their imminent transformation and asked, “Is that really how you feel?”

“You mean, what I said to that guy?” he asked. Ladybug nodded her head. “Yeah. I mean, money is great and all, but it’s like a tool, I think. I’ve seen it used for good and for bad.” He thought about his father, always substituting money for decency and love. “But beauty,” he thought of his mom, of the joy she had brought to life just by her bubbling laughter, by the grace of her movements, by the kindness of her thoughts. “Beauty just is,” he finished. “And the world doesn’t have enough beauty,” he added solemnly. Vaguely he was aware that another paw pad and another spot were blinking, but he was captured by Ladybug’s expression.

For Ladybug, the urge to wrap her arms around Cat Noir, to chase away the shadows in his eyes, to declare her love for him with a passionate kiss, was almost overwhelming. “You’re -” she started to say, but the beeping of her earrings right in her ear finally distracted her. She glanced at Cat Noir’s ring - only one paw pad remained - and instinctively said, “Your ring!”

Cat Noir responded hastily, “Your earrings!”

The two stared at each other, wanting desperately to continue the conversation, but knowing that if they stayed…

Cat Noir squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to decipher how he felt. If Ladybug saw him transform into Adrien, she might feel that he had toyed with her, even betrayed her. Ladybug frowned, knowing in her heart that if Cat Noir found out now that she was Marinette, before she had a chance to deepen their friendship, surely he would be disappointed when he found out who she really was.

“We have to go,” Cat Noir finally said.

Ladybug nodded her head, “Uh huh.” But just as Cat Noir turned to vault out of the alleyway, Ladybug reached forward to grasp his hand, to squeeze it quickly. He completely missed her gesture, and Ladybug let her empty hand fall back to her side. She watched Cat Noir disappear around the corner, and both disappointment and relief welled up inside of her. Her arms still itched to hold him, to hug him, but if she didn’t leave soon, she would transform far from home. So dashing out of the alleyway, Ladybug threw out her yoyo and began to swing home.

She barely made it into her room before she transformed. Tikki swirled out of her earrings and landed with a small thud on the cushions of Marinette’s chaise lounge. Marinette stood in the center of her room, feeling disoriented. A large part of her mind was still Ladybug, back in the alley, replaying the scene with Cat Noir. Marinette turned to Tikki and implored, “Can you retransform soon?”

“I’m so tired, Marinette,” Tikki responded.

“Please?” Marinette begged, pulling open the tin where she kept cookies for Tikki. Only one remained. She pushed it at Tikki. “Please, can’t you please eat this quickly? I know it’s not much, but I promise we won’t be out long. I just… I just want to see him. I promise I’ll be quick!”

Tikki sighed in her little voice. “It will have to be quick, Marinette; I won’t have much energy even with this.”

“I promise!” Marinette smiled. “You eat this while I tell my parents good night!” She disappeared from the room, and Tikki gnawed at the cookie. Marinette reappeared five minutes later, all smiles. She climbed up onto her bed and fluffed her pillows beneath her blankets, then said, “Are you ready Tikki? Can we go?”

“Okay,” Tikki’s voice had a little more energy to it, “I’m ready. But remember, not long!”

Marinette grinned, her mind on Adrien, “I promise!” Then she cried, “Spots On!” and felt Tikki swirl into her earrings. Within seconds, Ladybug’s red suit was hugging her like a glove, and strength was coursing through her body. She clattered up the ladder to the roof garden, and then shooting out her yoyo, she zoomed off into the night.

************

When the knock came at his window, Adrien’s heart somersaulted. He hadn’t gotten over the look Ladybug had given him in the alleyway, and he wasn’t sure what it meant. He hurried over to open the window, and held out his hand to help Ladybug in. Adrien reminded himself to act as if he were seeing Ladybug for the first time that evening.

“Hi,” he said, his eyes glowing.

“Hi!” Ladybug replied, and then threw her arms around him and hugged him. “Oooh!” she exclaimed in joy. She just wanted to shout, ‘I love you!’ But Ladybug knew she would freak Adrien out if she said that. So instead, she thought it; she shouted it exuberantly in her mind, hugging him and smiling inanely against his shoulder, and loving him.

Adrien chuckled in happy surprise, and hugged her back. He kissed the crown of her head. Her shampoo smelled like mango, and Adrien smiled.

“I - I can’t stay long,” she told him, faithful to Tikki.

“Oh,” Adrien replied, disappointed. “Okay.”

Ladybug hugged him one more time, then leaning back, and placing her hands on either side of his face, pulled him down for a gentle kiss. “What shall we talk about tonight?” she said.

Adrien pulled her back into a hug, and laying his cheek against her silky hair, said, “I don’t know. I don’t care.” The two fell silent and just stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, contented.

Ladybug rested her head against Adrien’s shoulder, and the adrenaline began to slip out of her system. Lethargy wrapped around her contentment, and she closed her eyes, quietly listening to Adrien’s steady heart beat. The long week, and the late hour, began to pull at her, and she stifled a little yawn.

Adrien laughed softly, “Did you just yawn?”

Ladybug nodded. “Sorry,” she smiled.

“C’mon,” he pulled her by the hand to his bed.

“What?!” Ladybug asked, surprised.

Adrien laughed and rolled his eyes, “I’m not suggesting *that*,” he said. “But I’m tired too. You lay there, I’ll lay here, and we can just hold hands and talk a little before you have to go.” He pointed to opposite ends of his large bed.

Ladybug considered his suggestion, then said, “Let’s make a rule. If we begin to kiss, we either have to be standing, or we have to move to the sofa.”

Adrien grinned. “Okay. Or we call Nathalie,” he joked.

Ladybug laughed, “Or your dad. We could always call your dad.”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea!” Adrien smirked, then flopped cross-wise onto his bed, near the pillows.

Ladybug weighed the situation for one second longer, then crawled onto the foot of his bed, and stretching out on her back, held out her hand towards his. Adrien’s comforter was dark blue and velvety, and Ladybug turned her head to rub her cheek against it and to watch Adrien. “Tell me something about your childhood,” she said quietly.

Ladybug watched a small smile flit across his face. “Okay…” he said, then fell silent, thinking. “Once, when I was young, about seven, my mom took us all on a picnic. My dad didn’t want to go, he was working on a design or something, I think. But my mom made the entire lunch - we had cooks already by that time, but my mom wanted to do it by herself.” As Adrien was talking, Ladybug scooted closer to him, so that she could touch his golden hair. Adrien paused, and turned his head to look at her.

Ladybug smiled at him and said, “Go on.”

“Anyway, mom and I went into dad’s office, to get him to come, and at first he refused, because he was working. So my mom,” Adrien smiled at the memory, “started to pull his shirt off - we had brought casual clothes in to him, for the picnic - and then tried to pull this bright green t-shirt over his head.” Adrien laughed softly, replaying the memory in his mind. His father had batted his wife away at first, annoyed to be interrupted, but her golden laughter won through, and finally his dad had grinned, and boosted Adrien up into his arms while kissing his wife. ‘I’ll go, but not in that ghastly t-shirt. The color makes my eyes hurt!’ Adrien’s mom laughed, making it clear she had chosen it as a joke. Ultimately they all went on a picnic, and rented paddle boats, and he and his mom had gotten a sunburn on their noses and his dad had gotten angry. But it was a nice angry, a loving angry.

“So what happened then?” Ladybug’s soft voice broke his reverie.

“Oh, we had a fun picnic. We rented paddle boats and laughed a lot.” Adrien grabbed Ladybug’s hand and pulled her closer to him. He stretched his arm out, for Ladybug to use as a pillow, and draped the other loosely around her waist. “You tell me one,” he said.

Ladybug laughed quietly. “I also remember going on a picnic when I was little. But I remember climbing a tree - it seemed really tall at the time! - and I got so high, I could even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, but then I got scared and couldn’t get down.” She smiled at Adrien. “My dad had to climb the tree to ‘save’ me. I just think that memory is so funny now, given, well, you know, given what I do now.”

The two shared their laughter.

“Here, turn over,” Adrien said. With her back to him, Adrien grabbed a pillow to place beneath Ladybug’s head, then shifted closer so they could cuddle like spoons. It felt so nice to be close like this, and both Adrien and Ladybug sighed.

Ladybug knew that Adrien would be able to understand her thoughts when she continued sleepily, “Sometimes I look back on my life before I got my Miraculous, and it’s funny how many boundaries I let -” she yawned, “I let stop me.” Ladybug snuggled her cheek into Adrien’s pillow. She could smell him in the fabric. His scent was a little like vanilla, and a little like fresh grass. With his arms around her, and his scent enveloping her, Ladybug felt utterly relaxed. When Adrien spoke, she could feel his chest rumbling gently with his voice.

“I can imagine. It’s like an escape from what you feared you were destined to become, to everything you hoped to be.”

“Mmm…” Ladybug used the last of her energy to pull Adrien’s hand up to her mouth to kiss it, then she closed her eyes and drifted peacefully off to sleep.

Ladybug’s even breathing was a soporific to Adrien. He lay quietly, languidly, and let his eyes drift closed. Snuggled against Ladybug, the world seemed perfectly right. “Bugaboo?” he whispered softly. Only her even breathing answered him, and without another thought, Adrien too lost himself in sleep.

******************

It was the whispering that woke him.

“I hate your sticky cheese, you know that,” a high-pitched voice was complaining.

“Well, I’m not going down into those kitchens for a cookie! There’s a cat down there!” Plagg’s voice roused Adrien further.

A small laugh tinkled, “That’s funny!”

“Just eat some cheese and be done with it!”

“Don’t you even have crackers up here or anything? And then she still has to wake up.”

“Well, we could let them sleep,” Plagg’s voice sounded deviously amused.

“Plagg!” the high-pitched voice chided, “*They* need to decide when to tell each other. It’s not for us to - Eek!” Tikki flew behind Plagg, as if seeking cover, as Adrien raised his head to stare in the direction of the voices. In the darkness, his eyes picked out the black smudge that was Plagg, and he could see a little head with dark blue eyes staring at him over Plagg’s shoulder. It took his sleep-fogged brain a second to realize what he was seeing, and then, without giving it any thought, he turned to look at Ladybug.

Except, it wasn’t Ladybug. Turned on her back, with his arm still draped around her waist, a gentle smile on her lips, was… Marinette!

Adrien’s mouth dropped open, and he raised his head to stare, at first not believing his eyes.

“Oooh! I *told* her I didn’t have enough energy for this!” Tikki said.

“Shush!” Plagg ordered. “This is gonna be good!”

Adrien glanced at Plagg, then glanced back at Marinette, sound asleep on his bed. He stared, as the reality of the situation slowly sunk into his mind. Marinette… Marinette… his mind kept trying to form the sentence, to give words to his new knowledge. A smile began to grow on Adrien’s face, until a wide grin gleamed white in the darkness. Very carefully, Adrien raised his hand to tenderly sweep her bangs away from her eyes.

He chuckled softly. How funny this was, that he and Marinette, he and Ladybug, were in the same class, were friends, that he’d even thought - he smiled again, amazed at his good luck. He laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what to do.

“What’s he doing?” the high-pitched voice asked.

“I don’t know,” Plagg responded, sounding somewhat disappointed.

Adrien raised his head to look again at his kwami, then carefully shifted away from Marinette and rolled onto his stomach, bringing him closer to Plagg. “Shh…” he admonished, “She’s exhausted.” The little red kwami stared at him uncertainly. “You’re Ladybug’s kwami?” he asked in a whisper.

Plagg whispered in reply, “Tikki, meet Adrien. Adrien, this is Tikki.” He turned sullen eyes to Adrien and complained, “You don’t seem very surprised.”

“Oh, I’m surprised,” Adrien assured Plagg. “I just don’t want to wake her up.”

“Hello,” Tikki flitted out next to Plagg.

“Hi. Pleased to meet you,” Adrien said quietly. Tikki smiled. “I have some crackers up here. Is that what you wanted?”

“Aren’t you gonna wake her up?” Plagg asked hopefully.

“Shh!” Adrien said, then shook his head. “I have to think about this. If she wanted me to know, she would’ve told me already.” Plagg snorted, and Adrien gave him a stern look. Then he slowly crawled off his bed and crept to his desk.

Tikki flitted after him and whispered hopefully, “Cookies would be even better.”

Adrien tried quietly to rummage around in a desk drawer, and finally pulled out a half-eaten box of crackers, and a couple of cellophane-wrapped ginger cookies. “You can have whatever you want,” he whispered.

“Would you please open the cookies for me?” Tikki asked.

As quietly as he could, Adrien opened the cookies and placed them on the edge of his desk, dropping the wrappers into a trash can. Then he sat in his chair to think.

Tikki perched on the edge of his desk, nibbling away at the cookies. When she was halfway through the pile, she paused long enough to say, “You’re really nice.”

“Thanks,” Adrien whispered back.

“I’m not sure Marinette would be unhappy if you found out she was Ladybug,” Tikki whispered. Adrien looked at Tikki, trying to unpack the meaning behind her words. He glanced back over at Marinette, still sleeping placidly on his bed. A feeling of tender possessiveness swept over him, and Adrien looked away.

Ladybug could have disclosed to Adrien her real identity at any time, he thought. They were friends. She would have known it was safe to tell him. But she hadn’t. He was pretty certain that she hadn’t even told Alya. Keeping her identity secret was so important to Ladybug. Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, weighing pros and cons. He glanced over at Tikki, and a thought occurred to him, “Does she know who I am?” he whispered.

“Umm…” Tikki prevaricated. It was not for her to divulge Marinette's secrets.

Adrien waited, but Tikki said nothing else. The room was silent except for the sound of Tikki’s nibbling. Pushing up from his chair, Adrien said, “Okay, look, I’m going to pretend to sleep. You wake her up, and get home. If… if she asks if I know, you can tell her.” Adrien glanced over at Marinette. In his mind he could superimpose Ladybug’s image over her sleeping form. He thought about the day before, at school, when he had told her that he and Ladybug were girlfriend and boyfriend. He laughed softly. No wonder she had smiled.

Adrien’s eyes played over Marinette’s sleeping form. Girlfriend and boyfriend. She meant so much more to him that just that.

“Tikki,” he looked back over his shoulder, “If she asks… Tell her I want to know her. I want her to tell me who she is. I … I really, truly, want to know.” Tikki watched him. She knew all of Marinette’s doubs, she knew why Marinette was so frightened to disclose herself to Adrien. And she knew that Marinette was foolish. Just as Marinette was one of the sweetest Ladybugs that Tikki had ever had the pleasure to partner with, Adrien was one of the kindest Cat Noirs she had ever met. In fact, it was a little surprising that such a kind person had been given the power of destruction.

Tikki flitted over to the bed. “Plagg, you be nice to Adrien,” she admonished.

“Sure, of course.”

“Don’t tease him too much!”

“I haven’t so far,” he said.

“Wait,” Adrien whispered, “Did you know Marinette is Ladybug?”

Plagg grinned, “Sure! Marinette never leaves Tikki behind. And, I know Tikki.” Plagg shot a look at Tikki that was surprisingly soft. “I sensed her from the beginning.” He grinned, his little fangs gleaming in the darkness.

“Oh, Plagg!” Tikki sounded exasperated, “You’re incorrigible!” Plagg laughed quietly, and then Tikki giggled.

Adrien, however, glowered at Plagg in the dark and whispered, “We’re having a talk when they leave.” Plagg merely grinned at Adrien. “Okay, give me a couple more minutes with her before you wake her up, okay, Tikki?” He carefully climbed back onto the bed and snuggled close to Marinette. Wrapping his arm around her waist again, Adrien pressed his cheek against her silky hair. That sweet mango smell tickled his nose, along with a muskier sleep smell. Adrien closed his eyes, and indulged in a fantasy. She knew him, and he knew her, and they were boyfriend and girlfriend. In fact, his imagination took flight, they were in university together, sharing an apartment, and this is how every night was spent. Snuggling in each other’s arms. Longing enveloped him, longing and sadness over what he could not have in his life right now, and it was as Adrien was squeezing his eyes tightly against the tears that were threatening, that he heard Tikki fly to Marinette’s other shoulder and whisper in her ear, “Marinette! Marinette, wake up!”

Tikki pulled on one of Marinette’s pigtails, to pull her out of sleep.

“Hmm?” Marinette’s sleepy voice answered. Adrien pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. She was adorable.

“Marinette, wake up! You’re in Adrien’s room! We have to transform!”

Adrien kept his eyes shut, but he could sense Marinette coming fully awake, and beginning to panic. He heard her gasp. “It’s okay. I found something to eat,” Tikki fudged, “But let’s go now!”

“Okay! Shush! Don’t wake him!” Slowly, Marinette slithered out from under Adrien’s arm. She padded across the room to the other side of his desk, and Adrien heard her say, “Ready? Okay, Spots On.” The bright flash of light should have awakened him, but Adrien ignored it and pretended to sleep. He heard Plagg chuckling from behind the pillow at the top of the bed.

A quiet shuffling, and then Adrien felt Ladybug’s gloved hand sweep aside his bangs. She dropped a soft kiss on his forehead and whispered, “Good night!” Then he felt her pull the bed’s comforter up around him. Adrien peeked through his half-shut eyelids to watch Ladybug sneak to his bedroom window, hop up, and then disappear into the night.

After a moment, Adrien rolled over, flicked on his bedside light, and said crossly to Plagg, “Okay, Plagg, let’s have a little talk.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the final chapter - thanks go to my son, who was determined to have a Flash (Speedster) type of akuma villain. Determined! But he was a little disappointed when I made LB and CN win against the speedster akuma. LOL! 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed my story! I will post another Reveal story soon, the very first one I ever wrote. :-) (I mean, the very first fanfiction I ever wrote, as well!). It is more playful than this, certainly. Take care, all you readers, and thanks again for the kudos and comments! :-)

     Adrien’s day started with an outdoor photoshoot.  The photographer had wanted to catch him in the bright early morning sunshine, slanting through the trees, for a new line of summer fashion that his dad was producing.  The morning was chilly, and Adrien was wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate from a thermos between shots.

     It was a break now, and Adrien was checking the messages on his phone that he had missed from the previous evening.  Nino had texted him, asking about going to the movies with Alya and Marinette. Adrien smiled. He would move heaven and earth if he had to, just to go.  Quickly he typed out a text to Nathalie, <What’s my schedule starting at three?>

     It only took a moment for her to respond, <Your schedule is clear.>

     Adrien’s fingers paused over the screen, as he considered tactics.  Then he typed, <What's my father’s schedule this afternoon/evening?>

     Again, Nathalie’s response was prompt, <Board meeting this afternoon, with a working dinner. Then an awards banquet. After party.>

     <Some friends invited me to the movies around 5.>  Again Adrien’s fingers paused over the screen. Position of strength or position of deference?  Adrien decided to cut it down the middle: <I plan on going unless father says no.>

     Adrien did not receive Nathalie’s text until the next break, forty five minutes later, <Your father says no.>  A cold anger grew in Adrien’s stomach. He narrowed his eyes, and thought to himself, _Tough luck, Dad.  I *am* going._

     The photoshoot ended within the hour, and Adrien hustled his bodyguard to the car.  As soon as he got home, Adrien made a beeline for his father’s study. He knocked respectfully and waited for permission to enter.

     His father’s cold voice sounded from the room beyond, “Enter.”

     Adrien, his heart racing, fighting the anger still sitting like a stone in his stomach, did his best to stroll in.  “Father,” he acknowledged.

     His father looked up from his desk and stopped writing, although he did not put down his pen.  “Adrien. What can I do for you?”

 _Here goes_ , Adrien thought.  “Some friends asked me to the movies.  Nathalie said that you said no.”

     Gabriel stared at his son, then replied, “That’s correct.  I said no.”

     “Why?” Adrien asked.  Except for school, he had never openly challenged his father on one of his decisions.  

     Gabriel paused for a moment, then said, “I want you at home.”

     “Why?” Adrien pressed.  “You won’t be home. You have a board meeting, and then a banquet.”

     Now Gabriel put down his pen.  He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and said, “You can watch a movie from home.  If you tell me the movie you want to see, I can arrange for your own private viewing tonight in our theater downstairs.”

     “With my friends?” Adrien asked.

     “No.”

     “Why not?”

     “Because I do not know these friends,” Gabriel began to sound impatient.

     Angry words rushed through Adrien’s mind, and waited to explode from the tip of his tongue.  Instead Adrien forced himself to take a calming breath, then replied, “Okay. Maybe at some future date I can bring them around and you can meet them.  But for tonight, I would like to go *out* to the movies.”

     “I said, No!”  Gabriel’s voice was harsh.

     “And father, I asked why.”  He stared defiantly, expectantly, at his father.

     Gabriel turned in his chair, and stared at the portrait of his wife.  Finally he said, “It is too dangerous.”

     “I would have my bodyguard with me,” Adrien shot back.

     “It is still too dangerous,” Gabriel said to the air in front of him.

     “So am I never to go out?  Never to experience life outside of this mansion?”  Gabriel turned back to his son with a ferocious frown on his face.  “Why don’t you cancel your board meeting, stay at home with me, and we’ll watch the movie together?” Adrien added.  He’d said it to make a point, knowing his father would never agree, but as the words left his lips, Adrien realized he wanted nothing more than for his father to say yes.

     But Gabriel said nothing.  He stared at his son, and both of them felt like there was an impenetrable wall between them.  Finally Adrien spoke, “Look, either let my friends come here for a movie, or I’m going to the movies with them.  Dad.”

     Gabriel turned again in his chair.  With his back to his son, he said, “Fine.  Go to the movies with your friends.”  Strangely, his voice sounded almost bitter.  Adrien stood, staring at the back of his father’s chair, feeling somehow that while winning, he had also lost.

     “You are dismissed,” his father’s empty voice said.

     Turning, Adrien left the room, feeling like all he wanted to do was cry.

          ******************************** 

     When Alya’s text came through, Marinette grinned and exclaimed, “Whee!!”  She held her phone against her heart and sang, “I’m going to the movies with Adrien!  I’m going to the movies with Adrien!” Popping her head into the back store room, where her mom was doing inventory, Marinette asked, “Mom, may I go to the movies tonight with some friends?”

     “Of course, dear.”

     “It starts at five,” Marinette said.

     Sabine’s disheveled head appeared from around the pantry door, “Can you leave when the store closes, or do you need to leave earlier?”

     “May I leave at four?”

     Sabine smiled at her daughter, “Of course.  Take money from my purse for dinner out too.”

     “Thanks Mom!” Marinette called, blowing her a kiss.  She returned to her station in front of the cash register and typed out to Alya, <See you around four!>  The grin did not leave her face for the rest of the afternoon.

           ************************* 

     Marinette and Nino converged on Alya’s house, and together the three friends walked to Adrien’s.  At the imposing gate of the Agreste mansion, they rang the intercom and the camera zipped out of the wall. “May I help you?” Nathalie’s voice was metallic through the speaker system.

     Nino spoke up, “Uh, we’re here to see Adrien…?”  He tried not to say it as a question, but failed.

     “Are you here for the movies?” Nathalie questioned.

     “Uh, yeah.  I mean, yes.”

     The camera disappeared back into the wall without any response to the three teenagers.  They looked at each other uneasily. “So, uh, what now?” Alya asked.

     “We wait?” Marinette suggested.  She knew enough about Adrien’s household to guess that Nathalie would happily have shooed the three away if Mr. Agreste wanted them gone.

     After a few minutes, the large gates at the front silently swung open.  Adrien, followed by his bodyguard, cheerfully strode out. “Hey guys!” he called.  When his eyes landed on Marinette, his grin seemed to grow even wider. Alya elbowed her a little too firmly in the side.

     “Dude, that Nathalie is freaky!  We didn’t know if they were gonna let you out or not!”

     Nino guffawed at his own joke, while Adrien casually reached out for Marinette’s upper arm.  He gently turned her while saying, “C’mon, let’s go. Before anyone changes their mind!” He winked at the group, and dropped his grasp from Marinette’s arm. Walking a couple of steps behind everyone, Marinette concentrated on taking deep breaths to calm the blush staining her cheeks.

     It took them about fifteen minutes to reach the cinema.  Alya kept darting looks at Marinette, because although neither could put their finger on it, there was something about Adrien’s attention towards Marinette… something a little too casual, a little too easy.  He deferred to her words, shifted to remain walking by her side, periodically touched her gently, like old friends… Alya lifted one eyebrow questioningly at Marinette, but Marinette just shook her head almost imperceptibly.  She wasn’t sure what was going on.

     They bought their tickets, then stood in line to get popcorn and soda.  Once they found their theater, Adrien’s bodyguard noted where they sat, then returned to the hallway outside, posting guard.  Adrien seemed to think nothing of it, but the other three found it a little off-putting.

     “Here, Marinette, sit next to me,” Adrien said.

     While Nino grinned and winked knowingly at Alya, Marinette stuttered, “O-okay…”  She perched on her seat, and wondered what Adrien was doing treating her this way.  How could he kiss Ladybug the way he did, then treat another girl like this? Unless…  Marinette thought of last night. Unless…

     She turned to look at him suspiciously, but Adrien merely smiled at her, patted her arm, then continued watching the advertisements on the big screen.

     Marinette had the overwhelming urge to interrogate Tikki.  Last night, she had pretty much dropped into bed as soon as she had gotten home, and in the morning she had raced down to the bakery to help her mom.  She had had no real opportunity to ask Tikki what had happened. ‘I found something to eat,’ Tikki had said, and now Marinette wondered how exactly that had occurred.

     Just as she began to excuse herself to seek a private spot for a word with Tikki, the previews started, and Adrien placed a hand on Marinette’s arm again.  “Stay,” he urged, “it’s about to start.” The look he gave her was so sweet, so entreating, that Marinette sank back into the cushions of her seat. Adrien raised his hand and tucked some longer bangs of Marinette’s behind her ear, his knuckles drifting over her cheek as he did so.  Butterflies started up in Marinette’s stomach.

     But then, Adrien dropped his hand, turned, and gave his full attention to the screen.  Marinette sat uncomfortably, her mind in turmoil. Only when the movie started, did Marinette finally relax into her seat.

     The movie had been going for no more than twenty minutes when a beam of light shined briefly from the door leading out to the hallway.  The hulking form of Adrien’s bodyguard crept to their seats, and for the first time ever Marinette heard his gravelly voice, “Do not leave this theater.  There’s an akuma attack outside.”

     Marinette’s senses went on full alert, and she could see Adrien tense beside her.  As soon as the bodyguard left the theater, Marinette excused herself, “I’m going to the bathroom,” she apologized as she pushed past her friends.  Hastening down the aisle to the exit, she heard Adrien say, “I’m getting more popcorn.”

     Marinette pushed out of their theater, and scanned the lobby.  Adrien’s bodyguard was standing near the front glass doors of the cinema, watching the streets beyond. She turned to the bathrooms, searching for a private place to transform, but a crowd of people milled around in front of the restrooms.  Looking the other way, she noticed a dense row of potted palms sitting decoratively towards the rear of the lobby, away from the other moviegoers. Marinette dashed behind the plants.

     As she was flicking open her purse, she heard rustling and looked up to see Adrien pushing his way into the narrow space.  His head was turned, watching over his shoulder the way he had come. When he turned to look forward again, he jumped, startled.

     Playing dumb, Marinette said, “What are you doing here?”

     Slowly, a smile grew on Adrien’s face, and he asked pointedly, “What are *you* doing here?”

     Marinette opened her mouth, but nothing came out.  She closed it again, wondering where else she could slip to, to transform.

     Adrien was staring at her, that smile still on his face.  Then, he narrowed his eyes. They seemed to sparkle with an unspoken challenge.  Without once dropping his gaze, Adrien punched his fist out and called, “Plagg, Claws Out!”

     Marinette stood surprised, watching a little black kwami swirl from out of Adrien’s breast pocket and into his silver ring.  The ring turned black, and a bright light seemed momentarily to envelope Adrien, making Marinette squint. When she opened her eyes again, Cat Noir was standing before her, still with that challenging, knowing look on his face.  His lean body was encased in black, and his honey-colored hair was tousled.

     Marinette narrowed her eyes at Cat Noir, and he laughed.  He knew. She knew he knew. And he… he didn’t mind that she was Marinette.  All evening, with his particular attention to her… He knew, and it almost seemed he *liked* her.  Raising her chin, she met his challenge and defiantly called out, “Tikki, Spots On!” She knew that Cat Noir could see Tikki swirl into her earrings, but Marinette only experienced the familiar whooshing dizziness.  She felt suspended in air, as power rippled through her body and wrapped her in her indestructible red suit.

     Just as suddenly, she was back in the cinema, behind the potted palms, staring at Cat Noir, who was still laughing.  He reached out and pulled her tightly against his chest. “Oh, Bugaboo! My Lady!” he cried. Then, his lips were on hers, and the passion that normally arose between them was instant, wiping out all thought of the akuma, the movies, anything.  Ladybug and Cat Noir were sealed together, lost in their own world. His hands delved into her silky hair, while she wove her fingers through his curls.

     Finally, the increased buzz of the chattering patrons broke their spell, and still embracing, the two pulled far enough away from each other to gaze into the other’s eyes.  Cat Noir looked extremely pleased with himself.

     “How did you know?” Ladybug asked.

     “Last night.  I -” A loud crash outside interrupted him, and several people started screaming.  

     “Um, I guess we better take care of this akuma,” Ladybug sighed.

     “I guess,” Cat Noir agreed.  He grinned back at Ladybug, and bent to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose, but Ladybug leaned back and intercepted his lips with hers instead.  

     She kissed him firmly on the mouth, then said, “Come on, follow me.”

     Ladybug led the way out from behind the palms.  She pushed past Adrien’s guard, “Pardon,” and raced into the street, with Cat Noir one step behind.  They paused, looking around. Down the block they could see cars stopped in the street helter skelter, and a small crowd of people surrounding something.  “Come on,” Ladybug said, then swung off.

     As the two superheroes approached, the crowd parted, to disclose a mother and her young son.  The boy was crying. Cat Noir crouched down in front of the boy and asked the mother and him, “What happened?”

     The mother sounded confused, concerned, “There was a bright orange blur, then some man suddenly appeared, and stole my son’s trophy.  It was just a junky, plastic trophy, that he’d just won.” She waved her arm to indicate the arcade behind her. It was one of those establishments where kids could earn tickets playing games, then turn them in for cheap knick knacks.  Cat Noir glanced at Ladybug.

     Ladybug asked, “Did this guy say anything?”

     The boy cried harder and said, “He said - he said, ‘that’s mine,’ and he took my prize!  But it’s mine! It’s mine! I want my trophy!” and the boy turned his head against his mother’s leg and kept crying.

     The mother shrugged and said, “He just grabbed this toy trophy from my son, and then suddenly it was like he was gone.  He was a blur, then gone.”

     Someone from the crowd spoke up, “I saw it!  He didn’t just disappear. He ran. But fast, really, really fast!”

     Another person waved their cell phone in the air and said, “Nadja Chamack is on!  She says the guy is called Sir Speed. She’s reporting on him from the Palais du Louvre.”

     “Look, here’s his picture,” a woman said.  She held her phone out to Ladybug and Cat Noir.  The paused video showed a wiry man in an orange jumpsuit, his feet bare but with tiny wings growing out of his ankles.  He had a numbered bib like on a marathon runner.

     “That’s it!”  Ladybug snapped her fingers, “The marathon today.  My -” she stopped herself automatically, then grinned, turning bright eyes to Cat Noir.  She did not have to hide anymore. Whispering, she said, “My dad went to the marathon today, at the Bois de Boulogne.”

     “I’m sure you’re right,” Cat Noir agreed.  “So where do we find him?”

     Ladybug shrugged, “I don’t know.  The Palais du Louvre?”

     “It’s a start,” Cat Noir said.  He turned to the bystanders and said, “Thanks!”  Then, the two took off, vaulting and swinging down the street.

     They arrived at the Louvre pyramids while Nadja Chamack was still on the scene.  She seemed surprised to see them. “Why are you here?” she exclaimed.

     “What?” they asked in unison.

     “Don’t you know about Sir Speed?  Did you see my interview?”

     Ladybug shook her head, “No.”

     “He’s coming for you.  Both of you. He wants your Miraculouses.”

     Cat Noir grinned and replied, “Well, they all do!”

     “But… but I’ve never seen an akuma villain like this!”  Nadja was sincerely shaken. “He’s so fast, it’s like he appears, and disappears.  He’s been stealing trophies and awards all over Paris.”

     “Why are you here, at the Louvre?” Ladybug asked.

     “He wanted to steal some ancient Greek cup from the collection.  But they put the bars down in time.”

     Suddenly, Cat Noir jumped into an alert stance, spinning his baton like a shield. “Behind me,” he commanded firmly.  Ladybug stared at him, annoyed to be ordered around. “Now!” he said furiously.

     Just as Ladybug jumped behind Cat Noir, an orange blur shot out from between two wings of the Palais, made a beeline for Cat Noir, and with a grunt hit and bounced off of his twirling baton.  As if by magic, the akumatized villain in orange appeared sprawled on his back on the paving stones in front of Cat Noir. He was shaking his head like he’d just run into a wall. His gaze was dazed, but his voice was firm enough when he looked up and spat out the words, “Give me your Miraculouses or I’ll steal every trophy in this city!”

     Ladybug jumped to the side of Cat Noir, spinning her yoyo protectively.  “What do you want?” she demanded.

     “I want your Miraculouses!” Sir Speed answered, beginning to pick himself up.

     “Yeah, we know that,” Cat Noir brushed aside the villain’s threats, “But what about the trophies.  We hear you’ve been stealing trophies from little kids. Not very sporting of you,” he mocked.

     “They’re mine!  All mine!” Sir Speed cried insanely.

     "By stealing them?  You’re a real winner!” Cat Noir provoked.

     Sir Speed jumped to his feet.  “You laugh now, but I know that once I have your Miraculouses, no one will stop me!  I will own every trophy in the world!”

     “You just contradicted yourself,” Ladybug pointed out drily.

     Sir Speed glowered at the two, then suddenly became only a blur of orange.  Instinctively Cat Noir pivoted to stand back to back with Ladybug.

     “Keep shielding with your yoyo!” he yelled.

     The orange blur attacked them again and again, trying from every direction to get to Ladybug and Cat Noir.  Each time he was rebuffed. Finally, with a frustrated shriek, Sir Speed disappeared like an orange blur the way he had come.

     Both superheroes paused their spinning, panting.  “Oh my arms!” Cat Noir groaned.

     “How did you know he was coming?” Ladybug asked him, amazed and relieved.

     “I guess I really *do* have feline sixth sense!” he grinned.  “I just… I just knew!”

     Ladybug bit her lip, her eyebrows furrowed.  Finally she said, “We’re going to have to ambush him.  I need to be able to get my yoyo around him, to get that akuma.  It’s gotta be in his bib. You’ll draw him out, shield yourself with your baton, and I’ll be on a rooftop above you to strike him.”

     “Why do I always have to be the one to draw them out?” Cat Noir complained.

     “How can you stop him with your baton?  Trip him?”

     “I could knock him out!” Cat Noir suggested eagerly.  Ladybug only raised one eyebrow at him. “I know, I know, he’s too fast.  Okay, I’ll draw him out.”

     Ladybug stepped close to Cat Noir and scratched him under the chin, “Thanks Kitty.”

     Cat Noir leaned slightly in to her touch.  He glanced at Ladybug’s lips, then raised his gaze to hers and smiled his Cheshire grin.  Ladybug blushed. Nadja Chamack coughed, and said, “Ladybug and Cat Noir, would you care to give an interv-”

     Ladybug interrupted Nadja, saying “Come on, Cat Noir.”  She tossed out her yoyo and swung away. Without a backwards look, Cat Noir vaulted after her.

     The two followed the sounds of sirens to a small museum dedicated to motorbike and motorcycle racing.  Although the place was surrounded with police cars, they watched an orange blur dart into the museum, and within moments dash out again, disappearing down a street.  Officer Raincomprix was directing a crowd of police officers to several positions around the museum.

     “Good evening, Officer Raincomprix,” Ladybug said, approaching.  “What’s going on here?”

     “Well, Sir Speed is attempting to steal trophies from the place, but don’t worry, we have everything under control.”

     Cat Noir suddenly jumped to the side of Ladybug and started spinning his baton, while peering down an alley.  Within seconds, an orange blur erupted from the lane and disappeared into the museum. Within a breath the orange blur returned, and then Sir Speed stopped.  He held three large trophies in his hands. Throwing a hateful look at Cat Noir, he made a growling sound, and then disappeared in a flash.

     “Gee, he sure takes an *instant dislike* to people,” Cat Noir joked, as he retracted his baton.

     “Uh, exactly how many trophies are left in that museum?” Ladybug asked Officer Raincomprix.

     “He’s only gotten away with a few, little lady,” Officer Raincomprix condescended.

     “There are only two left, Ladybug,” a different officer walked up.  “How can we help you?” he asked.

     “Okay, we’re going to try to ambush him.”  Ladybug scanned the rooftops surrounding them.  “I’ll wait on that balcony. Cat Noir, you wait for him at the main entrance.  Sir,” Ladybug addressed the new police officer, “can you have your squad block any other entrances to the building?”

     “We’re right on it,” he replied, while Officer Raincomprix spluttered.  Turning, the police officer directed his colleagues to various points around the building.

     Ladybug swung up to the balcony, and then stood alert, ready to throw her yoyo.  Cat Noir stood near the museum's entrance, listening hard. Suddenly, he sensed Sir Speed approaching, and starting twirling his baton.  Ladybug leaned forward, tense. She knew she would only get one shot at this. As soon as Sir Speed paused in front of Cat Noir, she would have to launch her yoyo.

     And then, the orange blur arrived.  But, it did not stop in front of Cat Noir.  The blur veered around Cat Noir’s spinning baton, and slipped into the museum.

     Immediately changing tactics, Ladybug threw her yoyo to make a tangled web covering the exit to the museum, trying to trap him.  Before she was even finished, a loud *crash!* broke the night.  Through a smashed front window, a brassy trophy fell to the ground, rolling.  Through the open window flowed the orange blur, which seemed to suck the battered trophy up from the ground, and disappeared again. They could all hear triumphant, sneering laughter echo along the alley.  “Drat!” Ladybug swore, pulling back her yoyo.

     A police officer ran into the museum, and returned almost immediately.  “They’re all gone,” he reported, “The place has been cleaned out.” Ladybug and Cat Noir exchanged wary glances, and moved off to talk.

     “He’s fast, and he’s sly,” Ladybug frowned.

     “I can’t believe I let him get away,” Cat Noir said, angry with himself.

     “Don’t be silly, Cat.  You didn’t let him get away.”  She rubbed her chin, “Just, how are we gonna get him?”  Huffing out a breath, without warning Ladybug threw her yoyo into the sky and cried out, “Lucky Charm!”  In a burst of red and pink light, a spool of fishing line fell into Ladybug’s outstretched hand. “Fishing line?” she said, exasperated.

     “Maybe we’re supposed to retire, move to the countryside, and take up fishing,” Cat Noir jested.  Ladybug shot him a dirty look. “I’m just joking!” he said, holding up both hands.

     “Lasso him?  Hook him?” Ladybug’s eyes darted around the city block, searching for clues.  

     “We still need to ambush him…” Cat Noir said, just as Ladybug’s eyes caught on a laundry line hanging across the buildings above the narrow alley.

     “Trip him…” she said softly, then repeated enthusiastically, “Trip him!  With the fishing line!”

     “We’ll need bait,” Cat Noir said, and almost immediately both Ladybug and Cat Noir exclaimed, “The Mecha Strike III trophy!”

     “Let’s go!” Ladybug yelled, and swinging onto the rooftops, raced along neighborhoods to College Francoise Dupont, Cat Noir hot on her heels.  They entered the building through the inner courtyard, and leaped down to the stone steps that led to the library, where the large trophy was kept.  Standing before the solid oak doors, Ladybug looked questioningly at Cat Noir.

     “We should save my cataclysm,” he replied to her unvoiced question.

     “Okay, on three,” Ladybug said, moving into a firm kicking stance.  Cat Noir stood ready at her side. “One, two, three!” Together they smashed the library doors with their feet.  The doors cracked, and one was hanging drunkenly from its top hinge, but they did not open.

     “Wow, I need to get the guys who built this to update my father’s mansion!” Cat Noir quipped.

     “Again!  One, two, three!” Ladybug exclaimed.  This time, both doors flew off their hinges, landing in a splintered pile on the parquet floor.

     Cat Noir raced into the library and grabbed the large trophy from its place of honor in the gaming section.  Returning to Ladybug, he said, “Let’s set the ambush up near here. You’ve already lost one spot, so if we have to, you can slip home to get more crackers for Tikki.”

     “Cookies,” Ladybug corrected as they leaped back onto the roof.

     “Oh, yeah, sorry, cookies,” Cat Noir grinned.

     “It’s strange to be able to talk like this,” Ladybug commented, as she somersaulted across the line of exhaust vents.

     “I know,” Cat Noir agreed.  He grinned, “But I like it.”

     Ladybug smiled back at him, “Me too.”

     “I like Tikki,” Cat Noir added, as they leaped across a gap in the buildings.

     “Yeah, she’s great,” Ladybug agreed, coming to a stop.  She and Cat Noir scanned the maze of streets and alleyways below them.  On the Rive Gauche, the neighborhoods tended to be cramped and twisting, providing plenty of spots for a good ambush.

     “I can’t wait for you to meet Plagg,” he said, only a hint of irony shading his voice.  Then he pointed, “How about there? That looks good.”

     Cat Noir was pointing to the section of a long, narrow lane that had no cross-streets.  “We’ll place the trophy on that garbage dumpster so it’s on display, and I can pull the string across there,” Ladybug pointed.

     “You set up.  I’m going back to the river with the trophy.  I’ll flash it around a little; maybe it will lure him more quickly.”

     Ladybug swung down to the narrow cross-street she had seen to set up her tripwire.  She tied the line to a gutter spout, pulled it low across the street, wrapped it around a bike rack bolted to the narrow cement sidewalk, and pulled it back again to the original side.  She was anxious that if she did not double it, Sir Speed would simply slice through it. Although doubled, it was still nearly invisible.

     Cat Noir vaulted the handful of streets away to the front of their school.  Standing on the river wall across the street, he pretended to call out to Ladybug, “Come on!  We need to get this trophy to safety. If he sees it,” he held it up to the rays of the setting sun, “he’ll want it for sure.  Let’s go!” Then he vaulted in as slow a manner as possible, down the street, in the direction he had come. “I hope this works,” he muttered under his breath.

     As he passed the Dupain-Cheng bakery, he could not help but smile.  Thinking back on the time he had spent playing Mecha Strike III with Marinette, he recalled how confused he had felt that day, attracted to Marinette, but wanting to remain loyal to Ladybug.  He shook his head, wondering at the good turn his life had taken. As he approached their ambush, he spotted Ladybug in the side alley, and knew where to vault over the tripwire. “Keep further back,” he admonished, “He’ll be able to see you.”  Then he rolled the dumpster to the middle of the lane.

     “Cat Noir!” Ladybug hissed.  “The other end! We have to block it!”

     Cat Noir smacked his forehead.  How could they have overlooked that glaring mistake?  He hid the trophy inside the dumpster, then vaulted over it to the other side of the narrow street.  Ladybug heard him cry, “Cataclysm!” and then a large cracking sound, followed by tumbling rocks. The earth shook under her feet.  Cat Noir appeared again, a cheerful smile on his face. “It’s a deep enough hole to stop him, I think,” he reported. “Seems there’s a metro tunnel directly beneath us!” and he grinned widely.  Ladybug chuckled softly, and moved back into the shadows, pulling the line taut. Her earrings were beeping in her ear, and her heart was hammering.

     Cat Noir fished the trophy out of the dumpster.  Ladybug heard him complain, “Yuck!” He placed it on top of the dumpster, then turned to face their ambush.

     The evening was quiet except for the distant sound of sirens and some honking cars.  Parisians knew an akuma attack was on, and they tended to stay inside for safety, so none of the cheerful, neighborly sounds filled the dusky streets.  Ladybug’s beeping earrings seemed overly loud to her ears.

     Just then, she saw Cat Noir tense, and begin spinning his baton.  He called out as a bluff, “Hurry, Ladybug, get the trophy and get it to the hiding place.  I’ll delay him!”

     Ladybug knew Sir Speed was coming, and pulled the line as tightly as she could.  Almost immediately, she felt a strong force pull on the line, as an orange blur flashed past her gaze.  Then with an “Oomph!” and thud, she watched Sir Speed tumble along the ground. With lightning reflexes she threw her yoyo out, wrapping it around Sir Speed’s legs.  Cat Noir darted forward, grabbed the numbered bib from the villain’s chest, and leaped over him to Ladybug. “Nooo!” screamed the villain, as Ladybug ripped the bib and released the velvety black butterfly.

     She pulled her yoyo from Sir Speed’s legs and declared, “No more evildoing for you, little akuma!”  The black akuma was trying to flutter away, but Ladybug’s yoyo snapped around it as she said firmly, “Time to de-evilize!”  She smiled as she drew her finger along her yoyo’s surface. The cleansed butterfly, now glowing white in the gathering darkness, tested its wings before fluttering off once again.  Cat Noir watched a gentle smile grow on Ladybug’s face as she bid it adieu, almost tenderly saying, “Bye bye little butterfly.”

     Jubilantly she threw the spool of fishing line into the air and cried, “Miraculous Ladybug!”  A burst of red and pink lit up the evening, and swirls of Ladybug lights swept through the city, repairing damage and returning trophies to their rightful owners.

     The akumatized villain, still sprawled out on the ground, was enveloped in purple smoke.  When it cleared, an older teenager lay before the two superheroes. He still wore his racing garb from the marathon earlier in the day.  He pushed himself to his knees, shaking his head in confusion, and asked, “What happened?”

     Ladybug and Cat Noir turned to each other, “Pound it!”  They bumped fists. The smile they shared was intimate, full of secret knowledge and joyful promise.  

     “Bugaboo, your earrings.  Go home and I’ll meet you there.”  Cat Noir winked at Ladybug, then turned to help the teenager to his feet.

     Ladybug took one moment to watch Cat Noir care for the young man.   _How could she ever have thought he was insincere?_ she asked herself.  How blind she’d been!

          ******************** 

     About five minutes later, Sabine and Tom heard the buzzer at the front door.  Sabine opened it and exclaimed, “Well, good evening! It’s Adrien, right?”

     “Yes ma’am,” Adrien bowed his head slightly.  “Good evening Mme Cheng, M. Dupain. I’m here to pick up La - uh, Marinette.”

     Tom walked up to the door and greeted, “Good evening, son,” just as Sabine asked, “But I thought she already left for the movies?”  Suddenly the door to Marinette’s room opened, and the three could hear Marinette padding down the stairs.

     “Uh, we’re going to be seeing a later movie,” Adrien answered, which wasn’t really a lie.

     Marinette smiled at Adrien, then on tiptoe kissed her father and mother on their cheeks.  “Bye Mom, bye Dad.”

     “Don’t come home too late, dear,” Sabine said.  As Tom closed the door, she remarked to her husband, “I like that Adrien.  He’s such a polite young man.”

     Marinette led the way down the stairs of the building to the street outside.  Falling in beside her, Adrien reached out and grasped her hand. Marinette glanced at Adrien out of the corner of her eye, and giggled.  When he lifted her hand to his mouth for a quick kiss, she blushed.

     “It’ll be fun explaining this one to Nino and Alya,” Adrien joked.  Marinette laughed.

     They walked for a few blocks in silence, sometimes squeezing each other’s hand in companionship.  After awhile, Marinette asked, “Did you know I knew?”

     “No!”  Adrien turned surprised eyes to her, “You did?”

     “I saw you change once.  You might want to invest in shades for your windows,” she suggested laconically.

     Adrien chuckled.  After a moment he asked, “What did you think?”

     “Um…” as close as they were, Marinette was uneasy to share her insecurities with him.  

     A memory slipped into Adrien’s mind, and he said, “You thought I flirted with everyone.”

     “Well, yeah,” she agreed.

     “I only flirted with you,” Adrien said softly.  Then he added, “You bothered me. As much as I loved Ladybug, this girl Marinette kept making me question the honesty of my feelings,” he teased.  

     Marinette stopped at his words, unintentionally yanking on Adrien’s arm.  “What?” she gasped.

     Adrien smiled back at her, “You couldn’t tell I was attracted to you?” he asked, amused.

     “No, the other…” her voice petered out.

     An intensely tender look came into Adrien’s eyes, and he stepped close to her, wrapping her in an embrace.  Quietly, he teased instead, “You couldn’t tell that I… That I’m in love with you?” His eyes played over her face.

     Marinette blushed, her cheeks suffused a bright red.  Adrien smiled, then chuckled.

     “Do you remember when you gave me your umbrella?” Marinette asked.  At Adrien’s nod, she finally confessed, “I’ve loved you since that day.”  She dropped her gaze to his chest, fighting her insecurity, uncomfortable baring her soul.

     Adrien placed a single finger under her chin, and tipped her face up to look in his eyes.  His smile was soft. “I didn’t know,” he admitted. “It’s a good thing I didn’t realize, otherwise you would certainly have tied me in knots.”

     Then, he leaned down and they kissed.  The street and its nighttime sounds faded from around them, until they were wrapped in a timeless bubble of radiance.  The two held each other close, wrapped together as one, and they expressed their shared love with a deep, slow kiss.

     “Oh my God, Adrien!”  Unexpectedly, it was Chloe’s piercing voice which broke their harmony.  Glancing over Marinette’s shoulder to the street beyond, his eyes still hooded with desire, Adrien locked gazes with Chloe, who was leaning out of the back window of her limousine, an aggravated look on her face.

     “Hi, Chloe!” he just had time to say, before the traffic light turned green and her chauffeur drove off.

     Adrien looked back down at Marinette and cocked one eyebrow, “Well, that takes care of that!” he said.  Marinette laughed, and he slipped his hand back down to hold hers. “Come on, we’d better get back to the movies.”

     A few blocks away, Adrien remarked, “So it was Plagg and your Tikki chattering away that woke me up last night.  And there you were, cuddled up with me.” Marinette glanced up at him, her eyes shining, but a blush started on her cheeks again.  “I liked it,” he added.

     After a beat of silence, Marinette remarked slyly, “It sure is handy being Ladybug.  It will make it easier sneaking out to meet you.” She grinned at her joke.

     Adrien laughed, and pulled her closer to walk with his arm around her waist.  Marinette moved her arm to wrap around him, and the two walked the rest of the way to the cinema bumping hips and grinning like fools.

     Adrien and Marinette had forgotten about Adrien’s bodyguard.  As they approached the cinema, he saw them and they saw him. The bodyguard narrowed his gaze, and frowned slightly at Adrien, then turned and pretended to look the other way down the street as the two slipped in through the first set of glass doors.  “I’m not sure he’s the most diligent bodyguard,” Marinette commented.

     “No, normally he is…” Adrien said, surprised.  Looking over his shoulder one more time towards the hulking guard, the bodyguard too glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes met.  Still with no defined expression on his face, the bodyguard barely lifted his chin, as if in acknowledgement. Then he turned back to the street, on watch.  Adrien shook his head, wondering.

     When the two slipped back into their seats, they set off a flurry of whispers from Alya and Nino.  “Where have you been? We were worried! What took you so long? Where’s the popcorn?”

     Marinette grinned at her best friend.  Finally she could share some of the beautiful turns her life had taken, “We, uh, we had a long talk!” she whispered back.

     “Yeah,” Adrien agreed meaningfully, “a *talk*.”  Then he lifted Marinette’s hand, still wrapped in his, and kissed it.

     “What?!” Alya screeched in excitement.

     “Shush!” said a guy behind them.

     “We’re trying to watch the movie,” a woman in front of them complained.

     “I’ll tell you all about it later,” Marinette promised in a whisper to Alya.

     As they settled back in their seats, Nino repeated, “Dude, where’s the popcorn?”

     Adrien and Marinette just laughed, as he draped his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder.  The world was full of promise.

 

The End

___________________________________________________________________

I hope you liked my story!  If you are in a generous mood, don't hold yourself back from buying me a ko-fi :-)  [Buy Me a Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/Q5Q48GW7) I'm trying to show my husband that I really can earn some money from my writing (haha, from my fanfic especially!) . Regardless, stay tuned for my next story that I will upload, my first reveal story, yay!  Have a great day!   


End file.
